If you’re feeling like you need some fun, gory 80’s insanity then do I ever have a book for you!

This is the review quote that won me over:

"As if Joe Lansdale wrote, and John Carpenter directed, the Jonestown massacre. SCAPEGOAT is Howe and Newman's Kool-Aid and you'll want to drink it to the very last drop." (Eryk Pruitt, What We Reckon)

It doesn’t lie.



This book is pure madness from beginning to end. Set in the late 80’s, that fabulous time before cell phones and back when hair-metal reigned supreme, a group of old childhood friends reconnect to head out to Wrestlemania III. Mike is now a family man and because of the wife, the baby and work he hasn’t seen his old buddies Lonnie and Pork Chop in far too long. After spending a few minutes in a smelly RV with them, Mike remembers why! Pork Chop is half in the bag, wearing a Rowdy Roddy Piper kilt with nothing under it (ahhh!) and Lonnie’s drinking, driving and doobie smoking have Mike wondering if he’ll make it home alive but he’s trapped in the passenger seat and quickly embraces the mayhem. Along for the ride is a scantily clad beauty and a trunk load of counterfeit wrestling merch. 

Sound like fun? It is! And it is so much more.

Lonnie gets stuck in traffic and freaks out that they’re going to miss Wrestlemania and decides to get off at the next exit - remember these are the days before GPS. Little does he know that he’s just driven straight into a scene from hell and it’s only going to get worse from here . . .

There are religious cults, carved up ladies, buckets of gore and an ending that isn’t afraid to go there! I loved it. This book is an experience. If you enjoy the madcap adventures of Joe Lansdale’s Hap & Leonard series I’m pretty sure you’re going to love Scapegoat too. 

The writing is terrific and the dialogue is spot-on and sometimes hilarious. I’m pretty sure I knew some of these people in the 80’s. Hell, I might even know a few of them now. The story moves fast and somehow the writers manage to fully flesh out the characters and create a plot that continually surprised and sickened me in the best way. It made me laugh and it made me cringe and that’s not something that usually happens when I read because I am grumpy, tired and jaded at the end of the day. 

It is the darkest kind of fun and if is this is your thing and you haven’t read Scapegoat yet I think you need to fix that!

Woo Hoo! More quirky and outrageous horror courtesy of Adam Howe.

Enter…If you dare.

Amazon / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

Okay….Here we go on another wildassed adventure.

A house on wheels, three mangy rednecks and a Wrestlemania road trip. I feel nothing can go wrong. ‘as I chuckle under my breath’

Some men never grow up, and Mike’s friends, Lonnie and Pork Chop are a perfect example.

They decide to take a shortcut and I know nothing good can come of that, but I sure am eager to find out what kind of trouble they find. They, literally, run into the “goat”, causing a crazy band of vicious, coldblooded cultists to chase them down.

Have no fear. Adam has a way of taking his flawed and twisted characters and turning them into lovable friends that come through at the end, but at what cost. He kills his characters off with no shame, probably laughing with glee as Another One Bites the Dust.

This action packed, fire and brimstone apocalyptic tale leaves me wondering…does anyone survive when the line between good and evil is blurred? Be careful…if you let pride…think you know it all….Arrogance is not an asset.

One minute I felt the truth of it all and the next I felt I was in hell with Sam and Dean Winchester.

Adam Howe shattered my expectations, leaving me loving and hating Mike and his band of misfits…and looking forward to their next twisted adventure.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Scapegoat by Adam Howe.

5 Stars

‘What do you mean – five o’clock?’ I said.

I glanced at the window. It was broad daylight, and I could hear the sound of traffic outside.

‘It is five o’clock in the evening,’ said the chauffeur. ‘Monsieur le Comte has slept very soundly all the day. I have been waiting here since eleven o’clock this morning.’

His words held no reproach: they were merely a statement of fact. I put my hand to my head, which ached abominably. I could feel a swelling on the side of it which was agony to touch, but my head was not aching for this reason only. I thought of the drinks of the night before, and that last tooth-glass of cognac. Perhaps it was not the last? I did not remember.

‘I fell,’ I told the chauffeur, ‘and I think I must have been drugged as well.’

‘Very possibly,’ he said. ‘These things will happen.’

I had read the blurb of The Scapegoat many times but it never struck me as a story that might grab my interest. The setting in the post-war French countryside just did not appeal to me. I mean, what could ever be that gripping in the post-war French countryside? And surely, the premise of a mistaken identity has been done to death since The Man in the Iron Mask, too?

When a friend returned the book to another friend, I somehow ended up with it. Probably, because I started reading a few pages in the cafe where we met and I could not put it down.

And that is what happened - for the rest of the book I was hooked.

Du Maurier does what she does best in this book: she sets the scene, creates oodles of atmosphere and slowly, teasingly reveals the mysteries that lie behind the characters and their woes.

The only regret I have is that I read the ending. It was such an anti-climax. Such a let down. So disappointing.

‘I hope that’s not the beginning of it,’ she said.

‘The beginning of what?’ I asked.

‘The beginning of my ferocious dream.’ Pushing aside the blankets she stood up, dusted her coat and put her hand in mine. ‘The Sainte Vierge is anxious about all of us,’ she said. ‘She told me Gran’mie wanted Maman to die. In the dream I wanted her to die too. So did you. We were all guilty. It was very wicked. Isn’t there something you can do to prevent it coming true?’

The suspense and slow reveal work really well in this one. I really want to know how all the different issues resolve...

"Sometimes a fourth drink can have the temporary effect of clearing the confusion caused by the previous three, [...]"

My favourite quote so far. I wonder if the author penned this from experience?