Hogdoggin' [Hardcover]

Anthony Neil Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 8, 2009

Former Deputy Billy Lafitte is a no-good, house paint-for-brains, despicable and dangerous traitor Special Agent Franklin Rome is sure of it. So sure, in fact, that he s willing to investigate outside departmental bounds. Willing to blackmail and bribe his fellow lawmen into helping him. Willing to ferret Lafitte out of whatever snake-hole he s hidden himself in, and do what the too-lax government wouldn't let him do back in Yellow Medicine county, just months ago ...

And Rome s plan is working. Squeeze a man's ex-wife, especially an ex-wife as unstable as Ginny Lafitte, and watch her overprotective man appear from thin air to stand by his family. No matter that Rome s had to bend a few rules in order to make it happen; Billy's end will justify Rome's means.

Of course, Rome didn't count on Billy riding in to save the day on a turquoise motorcycle with a beard, fifty extra pounds of muscle, and the weight of a man named Steel God at his back. Nor did he think Billy would go and get himself caught up with paint-huffing, knife-wielding rednecks. And Rome certainly never predicted that a broken-hearted, vengeful woman named Colleen would be just as hot for Lafitte s blood as he is...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The squeamish will want to avoid this violence-laden sequel to Smith's Yellow Medicine (2008), in which terrorists framed Billy Lafitte, a former Minnesota deputy, for some gruesome murders. Now in South Dakota, Lafitte is serving as sergeant at arms for Steel God, the ruler of a biker gang whose control over his clan is coming under challenge as his health declines. After Lafitte gets an emergency message to return home, he crosses paths with the FBI agent he once assaulted, Franklin Rome, who's plotting revenge against him. Most of the action concerns the efforts of Rome, aided by his assistant, Joshua McKeown, to catch up with Lafitte, who accumulates additional enemies along the way. The book's brutality is exemplified by the blood sport that provides the title, which matches vicious dogs like rottweilers against helpless pigs. Fans of darkest noir will be most satisfied. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Dodging federal arrest warrants and his old nemesis (special FBI agent Franklin Rome), ex–rogue cop Billy Lafitte—introduced in Smith’s Yellow Medicine (2008)—abandons his job as enforcer for a motorcycle gang and rumbles back to Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota. Rome is squeezing Lafitte’s suicidal wife to lure him home, planning his own unauthorized revenge play. Lafitte thinks he’s riding his turquoise-blue chopper to the rescue, but violence and destruction follow in his wake. Smith’s version of Minnesota is no Lake Wobegon; the inhabitants are refreshingly made up entirely of the deranged, the damaged, and the doomed. If you can picture the intellectual and physical mayhem that might have resulted from a Jim Thompson and Harry Crews collaboration, you’d be on the right track. But Anthony Neil Smith is his own writer—and a very fine one, indeed. --Elliott Swanson

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Bleak House Books (June 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1606480243
• ISBN-13: 978-1606480243
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,505,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write crime novels. PSYCHOSOMATIC, THE DRUMMER, and the Billy Lafitte series--YELLOW MEDICINE, HOGDOGGIN', and THE BADDEST ASS (forthcoming in 2013)

My e-original CHOKE ON YOUR LIES was published in January 2011.

ALL THE YOUNG WARRIORS from Blasted Heath Press was published in Nov. '11.

My entry in Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin's DEAD MAN series, COLDER THAN HELL, was published by 47North in January, '13.

I publish the online noir zine PLOTS WITH GUNS (www.plotswithguns.com), currently edited by Sean O'Kane.

I'm the Chair of the English Department at Southwest Minnesota State University.

I like tacos. I like red wine. Usually cheap red wine.

Check out my website at http://anthonyneilsmith.typepad.com.
Follow me on Twitter: @Prof_Neil_Smith

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hogdoggin' is Neil Smith's Masterpiece of Noir/Hardboiled Fiction May 31, 2009

By Frankie M. Bill Jr.

Format:Hardcover

I read the first book Yellow Medicine in two sittings. Following Billy Lafitte, a disgruntled police officer. Who was judged for his bad deeds down South and moved North. Created even more bad deeds.

But when I got Hogdoggin' in the mail I was blown away. Billy is now part of a motorcycle gang led by Steel God. Hiding out from Rome, a rogue FBI agent from Yellow Medicine who wants Billy's blood. I won't spoil this. Just buy the damn book. Try to put it down. It's a well written adrenaline-fueled-noir/hardboiled masterpiece. A page turner. I think we've found our new Jim Thompson with a touch of Hunter S. Thompson.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hogdoggin'--A welcome return to Yellow Medicine county June 1, 2009

By Keith Rawson

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Anthony Neil Smith returns with a blood thirsty, intensely satisfying follow up to his third novel, Yellow Medicine. For fans of Smith, his fourth novel Hogdoggin' is a welcome return to a group of memorable characters--particularly shamed crooked cop Billy Lafitte and the obsessive Federal Agent Franklin Rome--and settings that we wished Smith could have explored further with the first book, and for first time readers, Hogdoggin' provides a solid introduction to Smith's unique, hard charging prose style.

The action picks up 9 months after the explosive events of Yellow Medicine and we find former cop Billy Lafitte stripped of his police shield and branded as a terrorist and now living underground with an outlaw biker club known as the Steel Army. Lafitte is second-in-command of the club (Under the enigmatic and cancer ridden leader, Steel God.)and is preparing to take over the gang at any minute. (either by force or by Steel God succumbing to his long term, untreated illness.)Lafitte is haunted by the events at the end of Yellow Medicine, particularly the death of friend and sometime lover, Drew, and his inability to have a part in the lives of his two young children.

Lafitte has just taken part in a "trial" and execution of the Steel Army's former Sargent-at-Arms, Red Gator, when he receives a call from a secretly stashed cell phone letting him know that he has to return to Yellow Medicine county and that Federal Agent Franklin Rome has been harassing Lafitte's ex-wife in an attempt to draw Lafitte out of hiding.
And as expected, Lafitte leaves the Steel Army and sets out to vainly try to protect his family.

Needless to say, it's all down hill from there.

Much like Yellow Medicine, Smith sets up Hogdoggin' as a slow burn, carefully building tension and atmosphere and then having the narrative explode under his careful hand.There's a lot to like about the novel, Smith's writing is razor sharp and there is rarely a misstep through out it's entire 320 pages. Fans of so-called "neo" noir will be thrilled by the blood and action, and in the same breath fans of such transgressive writer's as Chuck Palahniuk and Will Christopher Baer will be pleased by Smith's overall skills as a writer and chronicler of deviant lifestyles.
Overall, Smith's ability as a writer easily tackles the many threads and sub-plots of this novel and leaves you begging for more.
Highly recommended.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars In a year stacked full of top notch crime, here's one of the best July 6, 2009

By Cameron James Ashley

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

A whole stack of nasty characters are set to collide. They are obsessed, they are dark, they are capable of extreme violence and their missions all overlap. Rogue cop on the run, Billy Lafitte (last seen in the excellent YELLOW MEDICINE), returns here, roided up, biker-affiliated and ready for the inevitable confrontation with FBI agent Rome, a man hellbent on bringing him down. The animosity between the two may be the spine of the book, but HOGDOGGIN' is very much an ensemble piece and there are plenty more characters waiting for their cue to enter. HOGDOGGIN' is Smith's noir answer to THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. With bikers, steroids, and...well, that would be telling. Just buy it.