Lee Goldberg thinks that Sleeping Dogs has one of the worst book covers in years. I don't think it's that bad—yeah, the gray drapes in the background kind of suck, but I dig the Ralph Steadman-esque type treatment. Anyway, I think the cover is wrong for another reason. If it really reflected the muscle and melancholy of Ed Gorman's work, it would have one of those cool Dell First Edition covers from the 1950s... specifically, the kind of covers they used to give Robert Dietrich's (nee E. Howard Hunt) Steve Bentley novels. That's because Dogs' narrator, Dev Conrad, reminds me of a modern-day Bentley: slightly sardonic, whip-smart, and equipped with a well-worn bullshit detector. Which is good, because when we meet Conrad, he's in the middle of a down-and-dirty race for a Senate seat where no back goes unstabbed. And it's great fun to have a character like Conrad take us on a guided tour.Sleeping Dogs would be a fantastic read any time, any year; the fact that it appears in the middle of a Presidential election year makes it all the more riveting. The novel is packed with all of that cool hardboiled political insider stuff—how to play the media, leak damaging secrets, deflect tough questions—that's entertaining right up until the moment you realize that this crap goes on all the time. I'd feel a little better knowing there were a few Dev Conrads out there in the mix. Not exactly holding my breath here.
