A review by nigellicus
Night Dogs by Kent Anderson

5.0

Raw, angry, powerful novel set in the dying days of the Vietnam War. Hanson is ex-Special Forces, a veteran of the war who has become a cop on the streets of Portland, Oregon. Revelling in the squalor, the violence and the adrenaline, Hanson waxes cynical about the world, but struggles with an inner conflict between his addiction to the power of violence and his soldier's certainty that it's the only way to get anything done, and his own soft, liberal heart, to paraphrase the late James Crumley's introduction. Encounters with pimps and whore, drug dealers and winos, psychotic lunatics and enemies on his own side of the law are punctuated with acts of random, brutal violence and occasional flashes of human warmth. More of a novel than a straightforward thriller, with a novel's structure and concerns, this is a portrait of a damaged man in a damaged world. Highly recommended.