Red Dog
by Jason Miller
Series: Slim in Little Egypt, #2Paperback, 316 pg.
Harper Paperbacks, 2016
Read: November 25 – 27, 2017
“And for sixty-flve dollars, too.”
Anci rolled her eyes. “Oh, I know. Usually, you get kicked in the head for free. Why not try it for money this time? Besides, this is your chance to do a good deed, pile up some karma.”
“You can’t eat karma, darlin’..”
“No, but it can eat you.”
I really can’t decide what part of these books I like best — Slim’s dogged determinism when it comes to finishing what he’s started, Jeep’s almost-superhuman capabilities (he’s Hawk + Joe Pike, with a better romantic life while not as tied to reality), or Anci. Okay, that’s a lie. It’s Anci — she’s smart, she’s insightful, she’s sweet, she’s got an attitude that just won’t quit.
In this book, Anci takes time out from critiquing The Hound of the Baskervilles to convince Slim to take a case for a couple of odd strangers that show up on their doorstep. They want him to find their dog for him. They’re pretty sure where the dog is, but they don’t think they could retrieve her.
Slim takes the case, and within hours he’s cut off part of a man’s body, had several threats made against him, and discovers a dead body. Oh, he finds the dog, too. But that doesn’t matter, because he’s arrested before he can return the dog.
Things go haywire from there — Slim’s still bound and determined to find the dog while he clears his name (or vice versa). The hunt for the dog and the real killer takes him to all sorts of places he probably shouldn’t go — many of which make the coal mining he left behind seem like a safe alternative to his current job. I hate to say this, but it’s in the publisher’s description (and on the cover image), but one of the places that Slim shouldn’t go is to dog fights. His reaction to them is visceral, and you almost feel it as much as he did as you read.
The characterizations are as deep and wonderful as before (including a couple of characters that’d make Flannery O’Connor balk), the evil that Slim confronts is very dark and twisted, and Slim’s voice is deadly serious one minute, and seamlessly laugh-out-loud funny without giving the reader a sense of whiplash. There’s some violence — brutal stuff — yet it’s Slim’s brain that does most of the work. Basically, it’s the whole package.
The Bonus Story About Those Danged Chickens, “Hardboiled Eggs,” was a hoot — not strong enough to work as a part of the novel, but it tied in well (and best read after the book) and was nice example of Anci and Slim working together.
I hope there’s more to come in this series, because I just can’t get enough. Miller’s style is great — the prose is smooth and fluid, so much so that you don’t realize just how dark and twisted the events are until it’s too late because you’re having too much fun reading. Take some time to visit Little Egypt and you’ll see what I mean.
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