Wild Horses by
Brian Hodge
hbk out July 99
Published by Morrow
N.B. American Edition - $24.00
You'd never know it from the dustjacket, but Brian Hodge is the author of six previous novels and several score short stories. The reason the publisher of WILD HORSES, his truly terrific new book, doesn't mention this is because most of that back list was published as horror. In the current marketplace, not only must new books not
be labelled as horror, but any past relationship to the genre must be Photoshopped to the genre police too. If this Year Zero policy helps to sell more copies of WILD HORSES, all well and good. It would be a shame, though, if the many readers who are going to be delighted by Brian Hodge because of WILD HORSES didn't seek out his other good work simply because horror is now such a dirty word.
The story tracks several mad days in the life of Allison Willoughby, an essentially decent woman whom life has repeatedly wiped its very dirty feet on. When Allison discovers that her latest loser of a
boyfriend, Las Vegas blackjack dealer Boyd Dobbins, has been cheating on her she decides to up stakes and start over again. But not before erasing the hard disk of his computer in a fit of pique. Little does Allison know that the back-up disks, which she takes with her, hold the key to $750,000 that Boyd and Madeline, his bit on the side, have skimmed from a casino. Quicker than you can say "Bugsy
Siegel" Allison is being tracked not only by Boyd, but by the very nasty Madeline and *her* bit on the side, the endearingly psychopathic Gunther. Gunther isn't very bright, but he is tenacious. And he has a certain unhealthy fondness for using Drano counter to the instructions on the label. WILD HORSES has some distinctly nasty edges on which to slit your readerly eye, but it does, indeed, represent a departure for Hodge
into mainstream crime/thriller territory. Fans of Leonard and Lansdale and Crumley will recognize this general terrain, but Hodge nevertheless succeeds at homesteading a new piece of property and making it his own. WILD HORSES is a turbo-charged road movie of a book. It features a go-crazy plot that grips right through to the climax, a wagonload of eccentric characters, and verbal delights which jump off most every page and stick in your head. Hodge's dialogue is often laugh-out-loud funny and his prose a pure pleasure. My one criticism of the book is that the secondary characters are a
tad more engaging than either Allison or Tom St. John, the good-man-she-meets-on-the- road. It's not that either of them are bad characters, but Madeline and Boyd are simply irresistible, and like any truly great bad guy, Gunther steals every scene he's in. WILD HORSES is being seen as a break-out book for Hodge, not just out of horror but into the limelight. Based on the good stuff
between these covers, he deserves every watt that shines on him.
(
Jay Russell
- one of the greatest talents the horror industry has produced for some time… (Black Tears))
Wild Horses by
Brian Hodge