Black Dogs by Jason Burhmester

According to rock and roll legend, in 1973, Led Zeppelin was in New York for a set of shows at Madison Square Garden. Before the final show 203,000 dollars went missing from their safe deposit box at the Drake hotel. The thieves were never found. However, in Black Dogs by Jason Buhrmester, we are offered a possible explanation on how the heist may have gone down.

The novel centers around a group of young men from Baltimore. They are a group of street rats and petty thieves stealing car stereos and running scams to get by. We are given a picture of a group of confused teenagers who have recently become adults. We see them working together, partying together, and getting into a lot of messing situations together. Throughout the novel the characters and their broken homes become easy to sympathize with after a string of seemingly endless bad luck leading up to their master plan to steal some cash from Led Zeppelin.

Everything that can go wrong does and every effort to right those wrongs leads to more trouble. These are some hard luck fellas, which, in the end makes them very likable characters. The dynamic of their friendship is interesting and relatable. It’s hard not to like a group of high school buddies trying to accomplish something together, and that is definitely how the book feels. The main protagonists are, in general very average and may be very much like a number of people you know.

One of the great things about this novel, as it relates to music, is how accurately Patrick, the main character’s fandom of music is portrayed. He has a love for Black Sabbath and talks about it often. This also leads to his dislike for Led Zeppelin. The accurate portrayal of music fans and their attitudes toward music they like and dislike is primarily what drives this novel. All characters involved seemed to have attitudes that relate to the music they enjoy.

Another driving force throughout that novel is humor and irony. Antagonist Backwoods Billy runs a violent biker gang, The Holy Ghosts, filled with born-again Christians. He scolds them for using the lord’s name in vain and then orders them to beat the shit out of people. It’s characters like this that keep the story interesting and moves it along.

One of the strongest attributes of the story is how quickly it moves along. Thanks to realism in relation to both the characters and their environment the novel keeps the reader interested with humorous as well as unfortunate anecdotes. It leaves you very able to picture with detail every situation these young guys get themselves into, and throughout most of it, it leaves you glad you’re not one of these guys.