Server Down

February 9, 2009
Hayes's quirky fifth Mad Dog and Englishman mystery (after 2007's Broken Heartland
) alternates between Sheriff English's rural Benteen County, Kans., threatened by an incipient ethanol plant, and half-Cheyenne shaman Mad Dog's madcap tour of the grungier neighborhoods of Tucson, Ariz. At a Yaqui Easter rite, Mad Dog finds himself framed for a policeman's murder, then chased by both the police and a cerebral contract killer. English's plucky daughter, Heather, and Mad Dog's wolf-hybrid companion, Hailey, try to save him from both parties. Meanwhile, the sheriff investigates the bombing of Mad Dog's Kansas home. The crimes, connected by the hypnotic War of Worldcraft computer game, ensure headlong pace and wrenching plot twists, but the book's real strength is the way it depicts computer gaming's destruction of the player's ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, with such actual consequences as election fixing and police corruption.

Author J.M. Hayes gets points for opening his novel with a lyric from the late songwriter John Stewart. The story is the latest in the Mad Dog and Englishman series about a would-be Cheyenne shaman named Mad Dog and his brother, a sheriff in a rural Kansas county. Science and magic intermingle as Mad Dog is framed for murder by an adversary on an online video game. While entertaining, some aspects of the plot challenge one's suspension of disbelief. Lloyd James is perplexing as the narrator. Most of the time his pitch and delivery are right on target, adding excitement to the story. But he sometimes pauses in mid-sentence or breaks up a thought, as if unfamiliar with the text. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine