Stray Dogs

Rating:
Summary: You should be more careful....
Review: John Ridley's Stray dogs is one of those short, hardboiled books reminescent of a dime store novel from the 30's. It's one of those novels that you either will love or hate. I happened to love it. The chapters and long on cynicism and short on description and detail. Ridley's writing is very compact and brief. It feels at times like you are reading a script because of all of the one word descriptions. It's no coincidence that Ridley wrote the script to the movie which is almost exactly like the book. The story is rather simple it's about a drifter whose car breaks down on the outskirts of a dustbowl town named Sierra and what happes to him in the 24 hrs after. A good read but nothing life altering. John Ridley is a good writer with a distinct voice. If you are looking for a entertaining read check it out.

Rating:
Summary: More than the average thriller.
Review: John Ridley, Stray Dogs (Ballantine, 1997)

Stray Dogs is the epitome of the needless book. There is nothing to be learned from it, no deep meaning involved, no moral to the story. A guy on his way to pay off some loansharks he's into has a breakdown on the outskirts of a very strange little town in Nevada. While waiting for his car to be repaired, he finds himself in a unique situation (for him, anyway): he meets a beautiful young woman, then meets her husband. Each wants to hire him to kill the other. Nothing much to it, really.

So why is Stray Dogs, then, such a fine piece of work? It is mostly because John Ridley knows how to keep the pages turning without ever dropping into genre fiction; there's no real genre this book would fit into anyway. It has elements of hardboiled detective fiction, a dash of the action thriller here and there, and it's loaded with the weirdness one expects from many "postmodern" European authors, but it never settles down. It just keeps moving along as fast as it can. As well, Ridley knows when to quit. Stray Dogs is a very short novel, and its brevity adds to the punch it packs. The ending may be a little too pat for some readers, but it does have a poetic justice-style twist to it that will allow the majority to at least get a cynical smile out of it. Good stuff. *** ½

Rating:
Summary: Stray Dogs=U Turn Screeenplay
Review: Stray Dogs gave me a curious escape from the humdrum. While seeming to jump around a little if not read in one sitting, it was somewhat like entering the Twilight Zone. But John Ridley does return control of your TV to you when you leave the outer limits.

Rating:
Summary: entertaining, at best
Review: There were some quirky characters, but other than that, this book is pretty bland. After a while, nothing comes as a surprise. The main character is totally unappealing. No point to it.

Rating:
Summary: A masterful style and a gripping noir tale!
Review: This is an absolutely excellent debut for Mr. Ridley! I'm surprised people didn't like this book. Sure, it's quite profane and vulgar--and personally I'm not a fan of profanity--but you can't help but notice how it flowed with the feel of the book. Ridley's profound descriptions forced you into experiencing every rotten, painful, annoying, surreal misadventure that John Stewart (the protagonist) had to endure! Sure, the hero was a sleaze, a lowdown swindling loser--but we still got his sympathy, simply because of all the crap he had to go through! We don't want anyone to endure that! I particularly liked the hero--I'd rather have Ridley do more with this character, but then again I've yet to read "Love Is A Racket." But Stray Dogs' hapless antihero Stewart was a loser whose near lack of conscience made him likeable--a luckless hustling gambler who uses people--but doesn't kill. It was like he was some kind of Jerry Springer, the only "normal" guy in the book! I could go on and on about this book--and later probably will, but I highly recommend this seamy little noir yarn! I can't say I didn't like the ending, though, since it worked so well with the story, but still. You'll see once you read it. GET THE BOOK (unless you're highly offended by profanity; the language is beyond coarse!)

Rating:
Summary: Fast! Grim! Menacing!
Review: Those three words sum up what this book is really about. I was talking to my fiance one day and asked her what were the recent movies she had seen recently. She said U-Turn, and I remembered that movie from old previews in the past and the fact that I have not watched it yet. Though it was an Oliver Stone movie and had such an outlandish cast, I just couldn't bring myself to actually watch something that I thought would not appeal to me. And there was that eensy weensy little bit of detail that my fiance did not actually like the movie. That enough, it would seem was the main drive of me not really pushing it to actually go watch it.

The movie, I guess stuck in my subcounsious, because the minute I saw the book in the bookstore, it caught my attention. I read the sleeve and went on through to the first chapter and completely gulped it up. I thought tyo myself "Huh? Was this book really good?" And I guess it was, the style was so much different from the literary adevents that I sually go for, which gave this piece of work a real blast. Ridley excels in creating the noir scenes and passes through them with ease and clarity. He is not very much into details, which makes the book read like a movie script. All I had to do was close my eyes and truly imagine the people. Ridley fails in creating how his characters actually look like, but since the book was made into a movie, all a person would do is know which actors played what. That's a real downsider at first, since it's all much more fun to picture caracters through your own mind's eye and not have it be desensitized by having pictured actors in your head.

This book is great. It's not the best book I have ever read in my life, nor is it the worst. You can, if you're a fast reader and have time on your hands, finish it in less than a day. It's short, way up to the point and the all of the characters seem to stand out as their own.

Now though, I have not watched the movie with my fiance, I can proudly say that I have experienced its feel. One thing that should be put into mind is that both the book and the movie have different endings, so both are a treat.

Rating:
Summary: WHAT A TURN IT IS
Review: What a great book! It is a very funny, twisted, scary book to find yourself in it. Like the crazy people in the town said, "you should be more careful". This is the book that the characters will never be forgotton. I love the movie based on this book "U-Turn" which Oliver Stone made. All of Oliver Stone's films are about "American Society". In "Stray Dogs", American Society is living in one hot hell hole. A MUST READ!!!