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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.

February 15, 2009
A tri-state, cyber-powered chase for an assassin.

A self-anointed Cheyenne shaman nicknamed Mad Dog (Broken Heartland, 2007, etc.) who roams central Kansas emanating peace and good will zips a thousand miles to Tucson to attend a Yaquis Festival with his companion Hailey, a wolf. He's welcomed by a killer who sticks his knife into a Sewa Tribal policeman and frames Mad Dog for the murder. When the fugitive Mad Dog calls his half brother Sheriff English back in Kansas for help, the sheriff has more bad news for him: A grenade launcher has just leveled his house. Mad Dog's niece Heather, in Tucson for a legal conference, goes looking for him, but she's in trouble too. An avatar on a computer game that Mad Dog and Mrs. Kraus, the sheriff's helper, have been playing seems to know every move they make and awaits them with lethal accoutrements. Worse, the assassin has been offered an even bigger payday if he'll take care of Mad Dog's gal pal Pam, a Las Vegas entertainer. Though Mad Dog is outplayed at every turn, Hailey still keeps the good guys intact, but not before the sheriff's office explodes; the assassin is double-crossed and does a turnabout himself; and the game that isn't just a game lands a bunch of teenagers in trouble, costs some politicians big time and even makes a Tucson cop get down and dirty.

Best enjoyed by those addicted to cyberspace gaming and the uncanny intervention of wolves.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from April 1, 2009
Cheyenne would-be shaman Mad Dog arrives in Tucson, AZ, to attend the Yaqui tribe's Easter ceremonies but is accused of witchcraft and the stabbing death of a policeman. But Mad Dog knows who the real killer is, having spotted him in an online computer game. Meanwhile back in Kansas, Mad Dog's house is blown up and his brother, Sheriff English, investigates. Readers of this series ("Broken Heartland; Prairie Gothic") know that when the English family is involved, nothing is what it appears to be and the outcome is never what anyone expects. Full of outrageous humor and a plot that will leave even the most jaded readers demanding more, Hayes's latest gives Janet Evanovich a run for the wackiest characters and most bizarre plots in crime fiction. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 1/09.]

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.