"Black Dogs" book review

In 1973 $203,000 was stolen from the legendary rock band Led Zeppelin during a stop in New York City where the band was set to perform several shows. No one knows exactly what happened to the money to this day, no suspects have ever been aprehended.

In Black Dogs: The Possibly True Story of Classic Rock's Greatest Robbery, author Jason Buhrmester tries his hand at giving an explanation of what might have happened.

The book introduces a gang of young men led by their veteran leader Patrick, along with his ex-con friend Alex, music loving record store employee Frenchy, and career technician/ thief Keith all of which have been committing crimes collectively since they were young boys growing up on the East Coast.

Patrick now working for a catering company in New York City has returned to his native Baltimore in order to attend a party for his friend Alex who has recently been released from jail. Alex was locked up as a direct result of the gangs latest robbery but despite that Patrick lays the groundwork to his childhood friends for another heist, this time taking a large sum from rock's biggest act at the time.

As the preparations for the sting commence, the four friends each have a hand in complicating their current situation. Whether it be stepping on the toes of a violent, Christian motorcycle gang known as The Holy Ghosts, trusting in Alex's greedy ex-con Uncle Danny, or having to fork over several thousand to a funk group reminiscent of Sly Stone known as The New York Giants. There is no shortage of shenanigans and colorful characters to move the absurd narrative along.

Black Dogs is a fun read by all accounts, but in being so amusing it suffers an identity crisis. The four main friends are by all indications the quintessential low life, burnouts whose social hierarchy is dictated by whether or not you graduated high school. They are a sad, sorry group who's parent's clearly are so out of touch and negligent that you can't help but feel sorry for them. Every time you want to root for this rebel gang they always find some way to make you despise them, whether it their overwhelming greed to snatch anything in sight or the fact that throughout every step of the way the group makes crucial, stupid mistakes resulting in consequences the reader could see coming from a mile away. Each section of the book is just an exercise in how many times these guys can shoot themselves in the foot and ultimately push each others trust in one another to the breaking point.

Time and time again Buhrmester bails his protagonists out with absurd events and convenient plot twists that after a while frankly become old and scripted. As you read on you are expecting these young men to prevail and rightly so, they are the focal point of the book and there is obviously no other way to move the narrative forward. It is Buhrmester's inability though, to take these characters into the unexpected, through each hurdle these characters encounter they come out unscathed and what the reader is left with is a group of heroes who gain everything and lose nothing, and the reader knows this is how it is going to go down from very early on. Never do you reach a point as a reader where you are surprised by the outcome of any twist or turn the narrative takes, there is no risk what so ever.

Too often Black Dogs feels like the authors homage to classic rock and growing up in the 70's and while it the exploits of Patrick, Alex, Frenchy, and Keith are certainly lively they lack any substance. In place of sections when you could see this book diving deeper into these characters and striking more of accord with the reader Buhrmester has played it safe, never focusing enough on these young men and their relationships with one another but instead promote formulaic, over the top events that really in no way shape or change the subjects.

Black Dogs is no doubt a fun, quick read, but it will be hard to not constantly be thinking of what could have been long after you put the book down. It's a novel best suited for picking up at an airport and brushing through on a flight to kill time, then immediately forgetting about it after the plane has landed. In no way does it bring anything new to the genre, favoring the same cheap thrills, wacky scenarios, and convientant plot twists that sometimes feel as though they have been pulled out of a hat.