You know you're in for a rugged ride when Vermont redneck Buster Callan washes and boils his clothes clean, then rubs them down with cow dung before going off deer hunting with his beloved dogs, Storm Trooper and Ace, in this taut reworking of McNaughton's 1978 novel, Poacher, of which a few anachronistic traces remain. Wimpish Dave Stern, a transplanted New Yorker and freelance journalist, has moved to Vermont with his wife, Carol, and their two kids to commune with nature, but like the greenhorns in Deliverance, he soon runs afoul of some nasty rustics. When an errant shot from Dave's gun kills Ace, Buster tries to blast Dave's head off, missing only because Buster's girlfriend, Peggy, who's the local bartender's wife, runs out of Buster's shack naked and tackles him. Dave escapes while Buster and Peggy take advantage of their position to make love. In revenge, Buster later hangs Dave's pooch from an apple tree and shoots the chickens the city boy has been raising. When Buster turns apologetic, you figure Dave is being conned, but talented horror author McNaughton avoids formula, especially in the way he develops Carol's character. Carol, who has reluctantly left a young lover back in New York, makes the big mistake of phoning the bartender to tell him that his wife's cheating on him, and there's ultimately hell to pay. The blurry jacket art won't help, but McNaughton's gleefully grotesque characters and situations should keep faithful fans turning the pages. (July)
FYI:McNaughton's
The Throne of Bones won the World Fantasy and the International Horror Guild awards in 1998 for best story collection.
