Murder Dogs by Karl Skinner

 The pandemic caused carnage and soon the world became a different place. No more morals and rules... now it was everyone for themselves.

Sarah’s life had taken a turn for the worse. Captured by a gang and forced into sex slavery, each day was just a mission to live. So, when a cop named Brad (who looks like he could commit murder and not think twice about it) arrives with a photo of her demanding to see her, she knows she needs to run. But out there it’s danger around every corner.

As Sarah hides from a rogue unit of cops known as the Murder Dogs, she has one thing on her mind. Survive at all costs...

 

The book has a fantastic opening scene and sets the tone for a very graphic story. The author depicts the emotions of the characters well, running from hate to despair to courage. The descriptions of atrocities committed in the name of the law as well as the loss of values that also spreads like a plague is a testament to the devastation the author has witnessed. But he has also managed to include the opposite, where basic decency and helping your fellow man still has its place.

 

The story is short but punchy and the action happens in quick bursts with the longer sections showing the desperation and loneliness. However, near the end of the story, an element was introduced that offset the authenticity of the story. No spoilers but think Terminator and the fact that the character is Sarah. Now this might lead into something as the book is left open for a sequel, but the genre change from nowhere was puzzling. As for the character’s change of heart? I think not. And when we find out the reason they are looking for Sarah, it stretched literary belief.

 

Making this book hard to read was the lack of chapters. There were some breaks thrown in but they didn’t give the reader a chance to breathe. There were also huge issues with dialogue and action tags being used incorrectly and words like feint / faint or into / in to being mixed up. Simple things like hyphens being used instead of en dashes and some backwards quotation marks stopped the flow of reading. It was also odd to use “a cup that held 500ml” or “a kettle that held 1.4l” – was it necessary?

 

Overall the author has done a good job of showing the reader the chaos that ensues when basic rights are taken away, and the story is entertaining if somewhat confusing at times. Three out of five quills for me...

Thanks to Reedsy Discovery and the author for the opportunity to review the book.

https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/murder-dogs-karl-skinner#review