From Publishers Weekly
At the start of Hodge's darkly comic second crime novel (after 1999's
Wild Horses), smalltime actor Jamey Sheppard, who's driving from California to Arizona to get married, makes a fateful pit stop at a highway "Gulp 'n' Go," where a drunken deputy mistakes him for Duncan MacGregor, the real-life crook Sheppard played on TV's
American Fugitives. After the deputy accidentally shoots himself dead in a pitiful effort to arrest Sheppard, our decent, bewildered hero goes on the lam. Trying to make sense of his senseless circumstances, Sheppard suffers numerous travails, including capture by a crazy family out for reward money. Meanwhile, back in Hollywood, Sheppard's malevolent younger sister plots to kill him so she can own total film rights to his ongoing story, which has attracted national attention. Acidic commentary on "reality crime" helps offset weak motivation (the hatred Sheppard and his sister feel for each other isn't sufficiently explained) and a convoluted resolution.
(Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Like any actor, Jamey Sheppard wants to be famous. When he's mistaken for Duncan MacGregor, an on-the-lam criminal, Jamey gets what he wanted, but not quite the way he wanted. On the run from the law (he's the prime suspect in a cop's death), from Duncan (who wants to meet this guy who's getting his press), and even from the one cop in the country who's actually on his side, Jamey has to clear his own name while keeping himself out of his pursuers' clutches. This big, fast-paced thriller keeps Jamey and the reader on their toes from beginning to end. The book never quite goes where we think it's going to go, and by the time we figure out what Hodge is up to, we're completely hooked. Horror fans know Hodge's dark fiction--
Lies & Ugliness (2002) and
World of Hurt (2006)--but he's a new name to most crime-fiction readers. That deserves to change. This one is great fun.
David PittCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
