Review of James Grady's "Mad Dogs"

James Grady helped to define the modern espionage novel with his classic book, Six Days of the Condor. Now, with his first novel in nearly a decade, he has created a twenty-first-century counterpart, a fascinating, frustrating acid trip of a story that is likely to be one of the most-talked about thrillers of the year.

Mad Dogs is a journey into madness and back again through the minds of five former CIA agents who are now all certifiably insane. Haunted and wrecked by the horrific events in their pasts, these lethal lunatics are stashed away in a closely-guarded, top-secret government institution in Maine.

When their psychiatrist is murdered, chaos ensues, loosing the five onto an unsuspecting world. Free at last, they head for DC to prove their innocence, using the black ops skills the government worked so hard to give them. Unless, of course, they descend completely into madness first.

Mad Dogs is a novel with mad energy, a fast and frenzied narrative that flashes back and forth in time between the main plot and the backstories of its five players. It’s an interesting device and most of the time it works, especially when the lead character, Victor, is in command. His story is by far the most interesting; the other four tend to be less distinctive, to the point where sometimes it’s hard to be sure which is which.

Another frustrating aspect of Mad Dogs is that the reader is never quite sure what is real and what is simply part of the delusion – fine fodder for a head trip, but not so much for a thriller novel. This is amplified by the book’s overly-stylized style, which only contributes to the confusion.

Still, those shortcomings, although worth mentioning, are not enough to spoil what is otherwise an enjoyable and always interesting story. If it weren’t for the fact that the bulk of the book is so original and so compelling, those limitations would simply be par for the course. As it stands, however, they make what might have been a great novel only a very good one.

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Comments

[James Grady]

Thanks for the words. I'm a fan of your blog. James Grady

[Cameron]

Couldn't disagree more. The fact that it had a dreamlike and hallucogenic quality just added to the flavor and uniqueness of it. I also thought Grady did a good job making the other four pretty unique. The most similar two were Zane and Russell though.

I just liked the fact it did something new with the spy thriller genre.