Book Review: Son of a Bitch by Andre Duza and Wrath James White

It's October! Time to read some horror books.

First up, let's take a look at a brief but fun collaboration from Deadite Press. (Disclaimer: One of Deadite's editors sent me a review copy of this.)

Andre Duza and Wrath James White have so much common, both in their style (horror that tends towards the extreme and bizarre, often with elements of urban fiction) and in their personal lives (both are family men and have a background in martial arts), that a collaboration between the two seems almost too obvious. It's actually kind of surprising how short and straight-forward the end result turned out.

Demetrius is an underground breeder who breeds attack and fighting dogs. After he finds out one of his dogs is being used in Voodoo sex rituals, his conscience gets the better of him.

As soon as he heard what they were up to, he knew he had to get her back. He’d have never sold them the dog in the first place, no matter how much money they offered, if he’d known they were going to gang rape the damned thing.

When he gets the bitch back, he finds that she's pregnant. Soon, she gives birth to what is clearly not a normal puppy. The fact it tears apart and eats its mother being a pretty clear sign.

“Man, this shit can’t be happening. This mutherfucker can’t be real. I must have smoked some bad shit. Shit like this ain’t supposed to be!” His mind kept screaming at him. Yet there it sat, splashing around in the blood and entrails of its mother, purring and cooing contentedly.  

To make matters even worse, the dog demon ends up eating the heart of a sadistic hitman named Warlock. This causes Warlock's soul to be bound into the demon's body. Demetrius and Warlock set out to find a way to free his soul from the creature's body, but everything seems to go wrong along the way.

Son of a Bitch proves to be a real page turner. It's a sex and violence filled thrill ride with some very funny moments.

“I’m nasty? Yo, have you looked in the mirror lately? Your face looks like a Sloppy Joe.”

“That’s it. I’m killing your ass right now. I don’t care if I have to drive this mutherfucker with my damn paws!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll chill. Damn, don’t be so sensitive.”

Other than that, there's not much to say about it. It's a brief (less than 90 pages) but fun and satisfying read, but given what I had read from both authors before, I expected a little more. I feel like Duza and White could come up with something really brilliant if they did another collaboration and really aimed high. My other complaint with this book is the editing (though this just may be my review copy). While not egregiously bad, there is still a high ratio of errors to the length.

Still, if you want an entertaining book that reads like an urban Dead Alive-esque horror comedy, you should definitely pick up Son of a Bitch.

Buy Son of a Bitch here.