Shoot the Dog by Brad Smith
My rating: 3/5 cats
this book is kind of like a the male version of a cozy mystery. and i don’t mean that in a bad way at all, i only mean that all the death (and bedroom scenes) happen offscreen, and the book doesn’t roll around in descriptive bloodshed. for some reason, i had thought he would be a grittier writer; one of those new-breed ultraviolent writers i like like frank bill or donald ray pollock. i bought one of smith’s earlier books, red means run, on the strength of the title alone—to me it sounds like it should be full of gore and terror, but considering it is actually the first book in this series, i’m going to venture that it is not.
so you fainter-of-heart-than-me can rest assured that there is nothing here to gross you out—it is just a novel in which murders take place almost politely, barely rippling the surface of the reader’s pond.
the story is focused on a man, whose name, by the way, is VIRGIL CAIN, who has seemingly stepped out of a western novel, even though this here takes place in rural new york. few of words, scorn for fashion and fame, who has no time to pay into the celebrity adulation of hollywood types or the gushing of gossip that arises when a crew comes to film a movie in his sleepy little town. but he could use some money, so he lets his horses become movie stars, and he becomes more involved than he ever wanted to be in the world of film and its hangers-on.
once on the set, he manages to piss off bunches of people who are accustomed to strangers falling all over themselves to do them favors but he also meets a sweet ten-year-old girl, whom he befriends, because little girls love horses, and she is not yet an insufferable hollywood actress. but then those darn murders get in the way, and both virgil and his girlfriend slash police officer find themselves involved in a world of lies and money and ego, and virgil becomes invested in protecting his young friend.
the book is actually pretty funny—it is not quite satire, but it does manage to poke fun at the film industry and the notion of celebrity, but more importantly, near-celebrity; those on the periphery who glow by proximity.
and even if you don’t usually go in for the strong silent male type who always gets the last, brief, word and gets all the lady-attention without even making eye contact, and even if you cannot understand what the deal is with sam and why she has such an infantile husband in robb and why on earth she would tolerate such a relationship when she is a successful woman in her own right, it’s still a pretty good story.
not quite what i was expecting, but still a good read. and now i have to go back and read the earlier ones, so i can see what i missed in virgil’s story…
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