Dog BloodDavid Moody
Thomas Dunne Books, June 2010
ISBN: 978-0312532888
Dog Blood is the second installment of the apocalyptic trilogy by David Moody. In the first book - Hater - Danny McCoyne is thrown into a terrifying apocalyptic world in which a huge portion of the population is infected with a mind-bending disease that forces them to kill anyone not under the control of "the Hate." In Dog Blood, Danny is back with the Haters on a search for his daughter, preparing for all-out warfare with the Unchanged in the seemingly never-ending battle of the two sides.
When Hater ended, Danny became one of the Haters, killed his father-in-law and tried to kill more before being swept up, almost gassed and then liberated by a change of fate. But Dog Blood doesn't start with Danny. Instead, it gives us the perspective of Mark, a member of Danny's extended family and an Unchanged as they are referred to now. Throughout the book, we are given brief sections where Moody shows us the other side, the human side that most novels and stories stick with. Of course, Danny is our protagonist again and we are quickly put into his first person account of the war, post hatred.
The driving force in Danny's life is to find his daughter Ellis, also a Hater, and who has been missing since the initial outbreak of Hate four months previous. Meanwhile, a large number of the Unchanged have barricaded themselves inside the confines of a small city, and we get various updates on the state of life among the humans as we go on. You know these two story-lines are going to collide eventually, and while it's kind of predictable, I love the connection Moody makes between them.
Dog Blood is jam-packed with the social theorizing and coolly nonchalant violence that made Hater such a page-turner. Moody is an inarguably talented author, and Dog Blood further cements his reputation as one of the best horror authors of the new decade. If you liked Hater, then you'll love Dog Blood!
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