Dog Eat Dog

by Edward Bunker, William Styron (Introduction)

Overview

Dog Eat Dog, Bunker's fourth novel, follows Troy Cameron, a reformatory graduate like Bunker. A terrifying and brutal narrative, the novel tracks his lawless spree in the company of two other reform school alumni, Diesel Carson and Mad Dog Cain. Dog Eat Dog is a novel of excruciating authenticity, with great moral and social resonance, and it could only have been written by Edward Bunker, who has been there.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312168186
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/15/1997
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	457,549
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Edward Bunker lives in Los Angeles with his wife. He is the author of three previous books, No Beast So Fierce, Animal Factory, and Little Boy Blue. He is also the coauthor of the movie Runaway Train. More recently he played Mr. Blue in the film Reservoir Dogs.

Editorial Reviews

Mr. Bunker has written a raw, unromantic, naturalistic crime drama more lurid than anything the noiresque Chandlers or Hammetts ever dreamed up . . . Dog Eat Dog is an exciting, tightly constructed crime thriller with a fully realized cast of characters.” —The New York Times

“It's easy to see why Bunker has acquired such diverse admirers as Quentin Tarantino and William Styron . . . What distinguishes Byron from other crime writers is his ability to convey the compassion dormant within his violent criminals without resorting to excess luridness, sympathy, or moralism.” —Publishers Weekly

“Edward Bunker is among the tiny band of American prisoner writers whose work possesses integrity, craftsmanship, and moral passion . . . An artist with a unique and compelling voice.” —William Styron

From the Publisher

Three California ex-cons plan the perfect crime in what James Ellroy has called "the best novel about armed robbery ever written." (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Bunker's three previous novels, including the critically acclaimed No Beast So Fierce (1972), dealt with the harsh reality of crime and prison life. His early life in reformatory school and penitentiaries probably accounts for the gripping verisimilitude of his stories, which are powerful but depressing. Dog Eat Dog is another chilling depiction of characters and situations that are haunting in their hopelessness. Antihero Troy Cameron has a past similar to the author's, so he sees very few options when he is released from prison. He shortly teams up with two other ex-convicts and drives to Mexico to heist over $300,000 from an illegal drug operation. The rough dialog and violence won't have mass appeal, but readers who like hard-edged drama will find much to like here. Recommended.Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.

Library Journal

A grim '90s noir caper by the celebrated ex-con author of Little Boy Blue (1981), etc.

Troy Cameron is a savvy, good-looking sociopath whose career goal is to be an outlaw with a lifetime income. Diesel Cameron, a tight friend he made at reform school, has a wife, a son, and a job with the teamsters that doesn't involve anything more serious than breaking legs and torching the occasional truck. Mad Dog McCain, the faithful companion who once got himself tossed into the hole to save Troy's parole, solves tough problems by killing the people who pose them. When Troy gets sprung from San Quentin, the three of them—their loyalties overriding but not mitigating their wary distrust of each other—team up in hopes of pulling a job that will get them out of the loop for good. It's a pipe dream, of course. Figuring that the best victims are criminals who can't run to the police, Troy and his buddies kidnap a baby druglord and force him to turn over a fat stash to them, as the dialogue bristles and the action crackles with authenticity. But a second kidnapping—snatching a major smuggler's infant as collateral for an uncollectible debt the smuggler owes a trafficker now lording it over a Mexican prison—goes wrong in a horrifyingly funny way, and the three conspirators find themselves on the run, wanted by every cop in California, and predictably at odds with each other. Throughout this brutal catalog of crimes, Bunker has his own axe to grind—the insanity of a three-strikes law that makes any two-time loser willing to kill to avoid being picked up on the smallest felony charge—but what lingers in the memory is the single-mindedness of his doomed hoodlums, who can't focus on anything but survival, revenge, and the big score.

A jolt of frozen adrenaline, relieved only by the walk-ons of the latest accomplices and victims.

Kirkus Reviews