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Bloodrush
Terror Town!
The small, peaceful town of Earlysburg was drenched with the sweat of fear. People were being killed. Hideously. Good-natured sheriff Jug Watson couldn't piece it all together - the multiple murders were too senseless, too gruesome.
A new wave of terror swept the town when dozens of animals were found savagely slaughtered. The sheriff panicked, the murders were out of control and he called for help.
But it wasn't the sheriff who needed help. It was the others who'd die. the others who would find themselves in the hands of a torturing madman!
The small, peaceful town of Earlysburg was drenched with the sweat of fear. People were being killed. Hideously. Good-natured sheriff Jug Watson couldn't piece it all together - the multiple murders were too senseless, too gruesome.
A new wave of terror swept the town when dozens of animals were found savagely slaughtered. The sheriff panicked, the murders were out of control and he called for help.
But it wasn't the sheriff who needed help. It was the others who'd die. the others who would find themselves in the hands of a torturing madman!
- GenresHorror
165 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 1, 1981
About the author
Hugh Zachary
26 books8 followersHugh Derrel Zachary is an American novelist who has written science fiction novels under the pseudonyms Zach Hughes and Evan Innes. His other pseudonyms include Peter Kanto and Pablo Kane. He received his education from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, served in the U.S. Army, and worked in broadcast journalism in Florida.
Zachary describes himself as "the most published, underpaid and most unknown writer in the U.S."
Zachary describes himself as "the most published, underpaid and most unknown writer in the U.S."
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 16, 2024
this is a police procedural and murder mystery set in a small southern town in the U.S. of A. circa the late 70s or early 80s, in which a bunch of gruesome human and animal murders are getting on everyone's nerves. this is also a dissection of race and racism, self-loathing and group hypnosis, bloody revolution and bridging divides. and finally, this is a folksy tale of over the top violence where a sympathetic co-protagonist uses the dreaded n-word so many times, and I blanched so many times at its use, that I had pretty much faded to white by the time I turned the last page. egads, this novel turned me caucasian!
that last sentence wasn't just written for the lolz, it is a spoiler-free clue to the mystery - enjoy!
Hugh Zachary was a craftsman, writing perfectly polished novels (well at least the ones I've read) across a number of genres. he is of course completely unknown now. when you don't have a standout style or a challenging perspective, readers and history tend to forget about you. I suppose that happens even when you have those things. anyway, don't let the "craftsman" label make you shy away from the book if you are interested. after reading the embarrassingly written Children of the Night, by an author with a challenging perspective and a standout style (and also writing about race, embarrassingly), it was a genuine relief to realize I was back in the hands of a confident author who knew what he was doing and how to tell a story and how to write characters that are real. great job, Hugh Zachary! your solid book was an antidote to a poisonous experience.
the estimable Grady Hendrix wrote the only other review of the book on Goodreads. I love the guy and he has great taste, but his review is surprisingly schoolmarmish (although his longer review, linked to within the GR review, is much better). the n-word is a powerful word, true, and a word that most people these days should avoid ever saying if they are not black. that's pretty basic common sense, and even though I do believe we often give words more power than we should, the thing is is that words still are powerful, so I'm not about to use it; I'm not black. thus my own schoolmarmish use of "n-word". despite not actually being offended by the word itself - words don't offend me.
but I digress. Hendrix thinks this book may be problematic to sensitive types. well I hope it's not! the word was used and is still used. avoiding that reality when writing about a certain place and time would be a cop-out. this book does not cop out when it comes to its cop characters. Sheriff Old School is a good guy and is also low-key prejudiced and he drops that word in front of black characters including the other protagonist - his new hire, a black deputy (and a beautifully developed character). the deputy takes it and calls the sheriff a honk (short for honkie) in return. (as if that is even an equal insult, let's be real here.) eventually Sheriff Old Timer stops using the word, although it's harder for him to stop using "boy" unfortunately. these are all important parts of his character, and even more importantly, the use of the word is necessary and meaningful when the book itself is literally all about race. sometimes writing about race is ugly. the book is often ugly, but happily it does have its heart in the right place.
one thing I really enjoyed: the pride and even gloating when the deputy thinks back on marching after Dr. King's assassination and then in protest against a segregated movie theater - and the unabashed excitement at finally being the person yelling, intimidating, and scaring, instead of the usual vice versa.
I loved the paralleling that occurs between the black and white protagonists: from their shared use of racially insensitive words to their sharply opposite reactions at the idea of another character perhaps being the killer to their appraisal of the women in their lives to their both sleeping naked (everyone should) to their understanding of the challenges throughout history that african-americans have faced (takes a while for Sheriff Hee Haw to get there, but he does) to their similarly empathetic yet common sense-based way of moving around in the world and engaging with systems and people. it's never spelled out in blatant ways, but Bloodrush is basically saying that underneath skin color, we're more alike than not. our blood is the same color. and that may be a basic message, but it is still a great one.
that last sentence wasn't just written for the lolz, it is a spoiler-free clue to the mystery - enjoy!
Hugh Zachary was a craftsman, writing perfectly polished novels (well at least the ones I've read) across a number of genres. he is of course completely unknown now. when you don't have a standout style or a challenging perspective, readers and history tend to forget about you. I suppose that happens even when you have those things. anyway, don't let the "craftsman" label make you shy away from the book if you are interested. after reading the embarrassingly written Children of the Night, by an author with a challenging perspective and a standout style (and also writing about race, embarrassingly), it was a genuine relief to realize I was back in the hands of a confident author who knew what he was doing and how to tell a story and how to write characters that are real. great job, Hugh Zachary! your solid book was an antidote to a poisonous experience.
the estimable Grady Hendrix wrote the only other review of the book on Goodreads. I love the guy and he has great taste, but his review is surprisingly schoolmarmish (although his longer review, linked to within the GR review, is much better). the n-word is a powerful word, true, and a word that most people these days should avoid ever saying if they are not black. that's pretty basic common sense, and even though I do believe we often give words more power than we should, the thing is is that words still are powerful, so I'm not about to use it; I'm not black. thus my own schoolmarmish use of "n-word". despite not actually being offended by the word itself - words don't offend me.
but I digress. Hendrix thinks this book may be problematic to sensitive types. well I hope it's not! the word was used and is still used. avoiding that reality when writing about a certain place and time would be a cop-out. this book does not cop out when it comes to its cop characters. Sheriff Old School is a good guy and is also low-key prejudiced and he drops that word in front of black characters including the other protagonist - his new hire, a black deputy (and a beautifully developed character). the deputy takes it and calls the sheriff a honk (short for honkie) in return. (as if that is even an equal insult, let's be real here.) eventually Sheriff Old Timer stops using the word, although it's harder for him to stop using "boy" unfortunately. these are all important parts of his character, and even more importantly, the use of the word is necessary and meaningful when the book itself is literally all about race. sometimes writing about race is ugly. the book is often ugly, but happily it does have its heart in the right place.
one thing I really enjoyed: the pride and even gloating when the deputy thinks back on marching after Dr. King's assassination and then in protest against a segregated movie theater - and the unabashed excitement at finally being the person yelling, intimidating, and scaring, instead of the usual vice versa.
I loved the paralleling that occurs between the black and white protagonists: from their shared use of racially insensitive words to their sharply opposite reactions at the idea of another character perhaps being the killer to their appraisal of the women in their lives to their both sleeping naked (everyone should) to their understanding of the challenges throughout history that african-americans have faced (takes a while for Sheriff Hee Haw to get there, but he does) to their similarly empathetic yet common sense-based way of moving around in the world and engaging with systems and people. it's never spelled out in blatant ways, but Bloodrush is basically saying that underneath skin color, we're more alike than not. our blood is the same color. and that may be a basic message, but it is still a great one.
November 16, 2016
Imagine if George V. Higgins had written a In the Heat of the Night set in a small Southern town that slopped around in gore up to its knees. Got it fixed in your mind? That's Bloodrush a surprisingly good, deeply gory pulp novel that will upset anyone who is sensitive to racial issues because it's indelicate about them, to say the very, very, very, very, very least. Read more about it, if you've got a high tolerance for that kind of thing.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews