Moondogs by Alexander Yates - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Moondogs
Author:  Alexander Yates
Publisher:  Doubleday, a division of Random House
Release Date:  March 15, 2011
Hardcover, 352 pages
ISBN 10:     0385533780
ISBN 13:  9780385533782 
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

A singularly effervescent novel pivoting around the disappearance of an American businessman in the Philippines and the long-suffering son, jilted lover, slick police commissioner, misguided villain, and supernatural saviors who all want a piece of him.

Mourning the recent loss of his mother, twenty-some­thing Benicio—aka Benny—travels to Manila to reconnect with his estranged father, Howard. But when he arrives his father is nowhere to be found—leaving an irri­tated son to conclude that Howard has let him down for the umpteenth time. However, his father has actually been kid­napped by a meth-addled cabdriver, with grand plans to sell him to local terrorists as bait in the country’s never-ending power struggle between insurgents, separatists, and “demo­cratic” muscle.

Benicio’s search for Howard reveals more about his father’s womanizing ways and suspicious business deals, reopening the old hurts that he’d hoped to mend. Interspersed with the son’s inquiry and the father’s calamitous life in captivity are the high-octane interconnecting narratives of Reynato Ocampo, the local celebrity-hero policeman charged with rescuing Howard; Ocampo’s ragtag team of wizardry-infused soldiers; and Monique, a novice officer at the American embassy whose family still feels feverishly unmoored in the Philippines.

With blistering forward momentum, crackling dialogue, wonderfully bizarre turns, and glimpses into both Filipino and expat culture, the novel marches toward a stunning cli­max, which ultimately challenges our conventional ideas of family and identity and introduces Yates as a powerful new voice in contemporary literature.

My Take: 

A quirky, unusual tale where a cigarette-smoking rooster is one of the bad guys, a band of bruhos (witches) nicknamed Task Force Ka-Pow are an arm of the good guys (or are they?), and a movie star whose fame is based on the real life of the leader of Task Force Ka-Pow is elected as a senator.  Mix them with the kidnapping of a wealthy American national whose son comes to the Phillipines to visit him before anyone knows he's been kidnapped, a prostitute named Solita who claims her son June is the American's son, and an acting foreign service chief who may have her own bruha powers, and you have a tale that is wildly imaginative and inventive, with action and dialogue that will keep you turning pages.

There are lots of characters here, but the author does such a wonderful job at giving us solid introductions to each of them  that as you're reading, the connections between all of the individual stories begin to form, and each slice of each character is entertaining on it's own.  You're never quite sure what's going to come next, and the turn of a page can lead you to another surprise.

I'll bet you haven't read anything quite like this before.  This is a wonderful debut novel, and I'll be looking forward to much more from Mr. Yates.

QUOTES (from an ARC; may be different in final copy):

The men on Efrem's island agreed that he'd been sent by God - sent for a reason.  The Holy Man, someone who knew a lot about God, said it first.   Efrem would take the world apart, so they could build it better.  The gift was nothing to be afraid of.  The angel of death was still an angel.


It takes a moment for the pain to register, because his ear couldn't have just been sliced off.  It's his ear.  Ignacio staunches the bleeding with a dishcloth and crams the cloth into Howard's mouth to stop him screaming.  Because he's screaming now.  Because his ear's been cut off.


...Benicio really started crying.  He wasn't even embarrassed about it, he just cried.  Because this was so f---ing awful.  Because somebody had hurt his father.  They'd probably hurt him badly.  And they would maybe kill him. And his father's best hope for being rescued was this guy, who, let's face it, was looking more and more like a maniac.

Writing:  5 out of 5 stars

Plot:   5 out of 5 stars

Characters:  5 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:  5 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:  5 out of 5 stars

Sensitive reader:  This one may not be for you.  There are some scenes of violence, as well as some profanity (in context).

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Read an excerpt

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

 

This book is listed as one of my titles for the 2011 ARC Reading Challenge

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through Shelf Awareness to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.