Dog Men

I received a free ARC, and this review is voluntary.

From the get-go we meet Chris, learning about his travels in vagabond fashion. Misfortune has followed him since he was a teen, and even now, there isn't much direction for him. On this particular night, an invite to a cabin from a friend is on the top of the list, but the three men he met earlier - only identified by their appearance, linger on his mind. Not so much sketchy behavior, but an encounter that was a little weird. Upon arriving at the cabin, he does not see his friend, but sets up camp anyway. She never arrives, but these three men do, claiming she's been injured and needs medical attention. After some brief conversation, the men leave, while Chris stays behind. Those men come back later on in the night, their behavior now sketchy, with Chris making a plan to defend himself, and escape. He is captured instead, and what transpires from this point in the story, to the very end, is a new struggle for Chris, one of deadly proportions.

While I cannot say what these three individuals are up to because that would be a spoiler, and I don't do spoilers, what I can say is that Chris is presented with danger not known to him before. Forced into this situation, having to fight for his life, while his captors torment him on the daily. What unfolds is a slow burn story of survival, and how far one man will go to protect his life.

With tension as the story ticks along, it is violent, and brutal, and there are lulls between the action, but the ending, and it's savagery, brings everything full circle for the reader.

I finished this in one sitting and really enjoyed it. Excellent, brutal horror, soberly written and deftly plotted. It's mainly a portrayal of the violence visited upon a man who gets kidnapped and used for very sinister purposes. The emphasis, however, should be on "portrayal": do not expect so much a story with closure, as a description of what this man has to endure, till what's really going on is finally revealed. And that's it: the author pushes no boundaries, this is the kind of humorless, extreme horror experienced readers of the genre have seen before, though without all that much gore but with much better writting than usual, with nuance and attention to detail.