Night Dogs

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic piece of fiction!!
Review: I met Kent Anderson as a student when he was teaching at Boise State University. While working on a paper which dealt with trying to understand the "combat high," I read his fantastic "Sympathy for the Devil" and got hooked on his Hanson character. Years before "Night Dogs" came out, he talked about some of the things he was going to put into the book, so I had been waiting a long time to see Hanson re-emerge. Alas, I was not disappointed, "Night Dogs" has that same pushing-the-envelope realism I loved in "Sympathy." The Hanson character is an amazing paradox of savagery and kindness wrapped up like a too-tightly-bound rubber band ready to explode or implode at any moment. Like "Sympathy," "Night Dogs" has the same feel of sanity in a world of insanity, of living hard with memories and the realities of a street cop's life. The streets of Portland take on the same insane, sad, and humorous elements that Hanson's Vietnam had. "Night Dogs" has an expertly woven surreal quality that few authors can capture. Anderson makes mention of author James Crumley in "Night Dogs". On a whim, I researched his works and have also become addicted to his fiction. He too writes of Vietnam and hard living, and I recommend any of his works as well. Kent Anderson is an amazing writer who I hope will continue to share Hanson with us and, for that matter, anything else he might grace us with.

Rating:
Summary: i must disagree!!
Review: i really looked forward to reading this book. i had read some of the reviews posted here and in mystery bookstore newsletters. sad to say i was very disappointed. i was looking for a great police procedural and all i s one violent scene after another. i guess i cared for Hanson but the book just didn't do it for me.

Rating:
Summary: disappointed
Review: I was very disappointed by the slow pace of this book, and the vulgarity, while maybe realistic, was just too much to take. This book will NOT end up on my shelf. I'm afraid someone will see it there.

Rating:
Summary: No plot
Review: I worked with Kent Anderson in North Precinct in 1975. Although the book is fiction, many of the stories have a ring of truth and the gut feelings he describes so well are real. He humanizes the police and the people on the street, far from a "Just the facts, Ma'm" kind of novel. Cops can cry, cops can be afraid and Anderson shows what it was like. Our police union newspaper editor gave it a bad review, saying it was too racist. But then again, but he never worked anything other than middle class white neighborhoods. I guess you had to be there. Read the book and you will be.

Rating:
Summary: Real life in Portland, 1975
Review: I worked with Kent Anderson in North Precinct in 1975. Although the book is fiction, many of the stories have a ring of truth and the gut feelings he describes so well are real. He humanizes the police and the people on the street, far from a "Just the facts, Ma'm" kind of novel. Cops can cry, cops can be afraid and Anderson shows what it was like. Our police union newspaper editor gave it a bad review, saying it was too racist. But then again, but he never worked anything other than middle class white neighborhoods. I guess you had to be there. Read the book and you will be.

Rating:
Summary: Grim
Review: I'm ex-Army and now a police officer. I spent many years in the Army and at best found it okay. I like police work in all it's glory. I also see similarities in this novel and what I've experienced, but I think the crucial thing to point out is that Kent Anderson was a cop in the mid-seventies. Maybe things are worse now, but I don't agree.The country was exhausted after the sixties and Watergate and nobody cared about the state of affairs. The cops were trying to deal with a bad situation with limited resources and in many cases not the greatest people were wearing the uniform. The city I work in has it's problems and it's bad areas, but the cops I serve with aren't burnouts and alcoholics. Times have changed and people have changed. It's a good novel and it takes you into the streets, but it isn't necessarily how it is anymore. I truely belive this.

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: If you buy only one book this year, this is the book you should put your hard earned dollars on. Gritty realizim from start to finish. Kent called those of us who worked the streets during this time period adrenaline junkies, and we were. Kent has hit the nail on the head with this book.

Rating:
Summary: No plot
Review: It's okay, but nothing special. Michael Connelly hits very similar territory with more craft. Simply put, Connelly is more of a pro. The central notion, incidentally exactly the same as in Anderson's Vietnam novel, that everyone except the hero is stupid or corrupt, and it's just so PAINFUL for him to continue under such circumstances, is jejeune.

Rating:
Summary: The Street
Review: Kent Anderson continues the clear, clean prose he exhibited in his first novel "Sympathy for the Devil." Sympathy is one of the best novels on Special Forces during the Vietnam War. Anderson continues his extraordinary writing of combat, except this venue is 1975 and the streets of Portland, Oregon. I know of no recent writer who has captured this modern battlefield. As one who worked for 2 1/2 years in a maximum security prison, I can say Anderson has captured the dispair of those in the streets. His gloomy note: "Things are much worse now than they were in 1975" is correct.

Rating:
Summary: A novel that will stand the test of time
Review: Kent Anderson has written a novel that encompasses elements of my past and present life. Being set in the city where I now work, many of the locales and neighborhoods have been very authentically portrayed, that even now ring true. Very little has changed, the poverty and destitution being there still. Growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, I well remember the icons and images of those times. Kent has captured their essence: drugs, Vietnam, and street life are described so well as to take me back to those vivid times. The reality of being a cop in those days is realistically shown, so if you are the least bit squeamish, don't! Truly this is a novel well worth reading, especially if you do not remember those times like I do: there is no more honest portrayal. I have not read Kent's other novel "Sympathy for the Devil," but Hanson's appeal as a character has now drawn me to find and read it