Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2013
320 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
In upstate New York, Virgil Cain is drawing hay behind his team of massive Percherons when two movie scouts show up and offer $500 a day to use the horses in a film to be shot in the area. Virgil, in need of cash, reluctantly pockets the money, but he soon finds the chaotic set of Frontier Woman to be more trouble than it's worth.
Savvy producer Sam Sawchuk is in over her head; when she's not propping up her talent-challenged husband-cum-director, she's trying to keep tabs on a new investor, the Native American casino owner Ronnie Red Hawk, a rambling egomaniac with designs on an infamous starlet. When the film's leading lady turns up dead, Virgil discovers that more is at stake than the carnal interests of a casino magnate and the production of a major motion picture. And although he'd rather leave the whole bunch to stew in their own juices, he realizes he needs to step in before a charming ten-year-old actress named Georgia becomes the next victim.
"Starred Review. Stellar…Wonderfully wrought characters, delicious wit, and droll storytelling make [Shoot the Dog] a delightful romp." - Publishers Weekly
"The movie angle proves a bit predictable, but Virgil remains a thoroughly charming hero in the self-reliant, bantering Elmore Leonard mold, and Smith can spin even a tired premise into genuinely entertaining fiction." - Booklist
"Smith's slyly entertaining satire makes it easy to overlook the perfunctory, forgettable mystery." - Kirkus
"Smith has written tight, fast-paced novels his entire career…and reading one is like riding a thoroughbred." - The Chronicle Herald
"Brad Smith has got the goods - he's funny, poignant, evocative, and he tells a blistering tale. A writer to watch, a comet on the horizon." - Dennis Lehane
"Brad Smith combines smooth writing with a twisted mind to give readers Carl Hiassen humor, but with horses instead of gators." - Julie Kramer, author of Shunning Sarah
This information about Shoot the Dog was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Brad Smith was born and raised in southern Ontario. He has worked as a farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher, maintenance mechanic, roofer, and carpenter. He lives in an eighty-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie. Run Means Red, the first novel in his Virgil Cain series, was named among the Year's Best Crime Novels by Booklist.
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