XOLO

Hurd’s debut is a modern creature feature that pays homage to classic horror.

Derek Rains is nervous when he brings home a Xolo (Mexican hairless) dog from a business trip to Mexico. The pup is supposed to be a surprise for his young kids, Max and Gracie, but he failed to tell his wife, Alison, about it, and she’s ticked. Derek ignores the warnings of the old man who sold the dog and finds a way to smuggle it home. When it bites Max at show and tell at school, Alison is irate, and the Xolo is canis non grata. Derek drives out to an animal shelter in a remote location to drop off the dog, but when he sees the vet covered in blood from an operation and the other dogs go nuts in their cages, he figures the humane thing to do is to drop the dog off in the woods. Of course, the Xolo is a special dog with the power to control other dogs, and he soon begins a terror campaign across the remote Puebla County in Colorado, with Derek and Max as his prime targets for terror. Derek has to team up with Sheriff Garth Chambers and Heloise Lopez, head of the county animal control department, to stop a giant, murderous pack of dogs from overtaking the area. Hurd is a talented writer who knows how to pace a scene for maximum scares. For example, when Max and his friends sneak out to an old house one night, Hurd lets you see every detail and feel the menace—you know the dogs are close. He creates believable characters with human flaws and problems. And horror fans will enjoy his occasional nods to genre classics (a neighboring town is named Castle Rock, a Stephen King reference, and a doctor is named Pretorius after a character from Bride of Frankenstein). Where Hurd runs into trouble is about halfway into the book, after a violent and furious confrontation between the dogs and local law enforcement. The plot should have started to draw to a close there, but instead, we get a government weapons subplot that just gets in the way. Also worthy of note—the Xolo’s point of view is represented, which is an unnecessary distraction.

Not without drawbacks but fun and well imagined.