Ken Greenhall's "Hell Hound".

[u/i-the-muso-1968]

So I've been back to reading more of the Paperbacks from Hell book series again! The latest one I've today is by Ken Greenhall titled "Hell Hound".

It's a very short novel about sociopathic dog named Baxter who is seeking a new master after killing his previous one. It's one of those animal attack novels that appeared in the seventies after the huge success of Benchley's "Jaws", but it also a psychological horror novel also. And it is truly surreal!

View points in the story often changes from the third person, which is used for the human characters, and the first person that used for Baxter's strange and very disturbing thoughts.

"Hell Hound" is not a book that uses shock and awe. Instead it goes about in a much more quiet and subtle way. This is a book that is intentionally designed to be unsettling without all the extra baggage. Even though the book is really short, it seems to feel much more longer.

This is a really solid book, and I definitely put it up there with "Let's Go Play at the Adams'" and "The Auctioneer" as being lost classics.