Dark Horse

by Doug Richardson

Overview

Crusading Texas lawyer Mitch Dutton is running for the U.S. Congress. Young, handsome, charismatic, he has a charming wife and the TV cameras love him. But South County belongs to George "Hurricane" Hammond, the incumbent Republican war-horse who has his party's nomination all but sewn up.

Then the great man dies in a riding "accident" on Primary Day. Suddenly Mitch Dutton is The Man: the Democratic candidate for Congress and a virtual shoo-in come November. With his election assured, now he can address the important issues, keep to the high road and run a good, clean campaign.

But his opposition has different ideas. An obscure local election rule gave Shakespeare McCann the Republican nomination - an almost total unknown, a dark horse candidate with no past and no principles. There is no weakness McCann will not exploit, no secret he cannot expose. Shakespeare McCann would kill to be congressman.

Without warning, a political campaign that began on solid high ground is rapidly sinking into mud, lust, violence . . .and death. Candidate Dutton has seen the true face of his opponent - and it is the terrifying face of a psychopath. The Dark Horse is gaining - and there is nothing he won't do to get elected. Nothing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780380787708
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	01/28/1998
Pages:	10
Product dimensions:	4.22(w) x 6.89(h) x 1.19(d)

About the Author

Doug Richardson is a well-known, respected screenwriter whose hit film credits include Die Hard II: Die Harder, Bad Boys, and Money Train. Dark Horse is his first novel. He lives in southern California.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

The recipe was simple.

A burlap sack, twenty-five feet of nylon rope, and a cash purchase of four live rabbits from the local livestock supply. With the ingredients assembled, the animals' throats were slit, the twitching carcasses dumped into the burlap sack, and the rope used to securely tie the sack closed.

Rabbit stew, thought the cook.

He climbed into his saddle. Small and slender, he was barely a wisp on the nag's back. He checked his watch and patiently waited for the dogs to come.

And come, they did. Right after sunset, on time and howling like the devil. There would be two of them. Both hounds, leading the old man on his Tuesday hunt. They would pick up the smell of the dead rabbits, key on the scent, and set a new heading.

Sure as shit, the old man would follow.

The rider spurred his rented horse and cut a path through the woods, dragging the burlap sack behind him in a snakelike pattern. Not too complicated, though. He didn't want to confuse the dogs.' Just the old man. And the sooner, the better, he figured. It would be dark soon. That meant the polls would be closing back in Texas. The rider would want to make phone calls and hear the good news.

But there was work left to do.

As the burlap sack bumped and tumbled along the wooded floor, dragged behind the ever-quickening horse, it marked leaves and dead wood with the deadly rabbit perfume. The dogs would soon lock on and give chase.

The game would begin.

Copyright ) 1997 by Doug Richardson

Editorial Reviews

The wonderful villain at the heart of this debut thriller almost makes up for Richardson's awkward writing. Shakespeare McCann will do anything-including committing murder-to get himself elected to Congress from the small Texas district of Cathedral Island, and every time he's on page the novel's energy level rises to a crackle. When the Republican incumbent dies in what looks like a hunting accident on the eve of a primary election, McCann, using an obscure loophole in Texas election laws, takes his place. Nobody thinks this darkest of horses has a chance, and watching him rape and pillage his way to the top should have been plenty of dirty fun. But the candidate against whom McCann directs his demonic glee-a self-righteous local lawyer and community activist named Mitch Dutton-comes across as a wimp. Even though his first meeting with McCann leaves him badly beaten in an alley, Dutton refuses to take his enemy seriously. Set up and sandbagged at every turn, he and his handlers are so slow to react to McCann's increasingly vicious threats that reader sympathy for their plight evaporates. It also doesn't help that Richardson often writes in short, jerky sentences that derail rather than propel the narrative. And somebody should have removed at least half of the always intrusive, often baffling, italic thoughts and phrases that litter too many pages. FYI: Richardson, the son of veteran California politician H.L. Richardson, wrote the screenplays of Die Hard II, Bad Boys and The Money Train.

Publishers Weekly - Cahners\\Publishers_Weekly

The wonderful villain at the heart of this debut thriller almost makes up for Richardson's awkward writing. Shakespeare McCann will do anythingDincluding committing murderDto get himself elected to Congress from the small Texas district of Cathedral Island, and every time he's on page the novel's energy level rises to a crackle. When the Republican incumbent dies in what looks like a hunting accident on the eve of a primary election, McCann, using an obscure loophole in Texas election laws, takes his place. Nobody thinks this darkest of horses has a chance, and watching him rape and pillage his way to the top should have been plenty of dirty fun. But the candidate against whom McCann directs his demonic gleeDa self-righteous local lawyer and community activist named Mitch DuttonDcomes across as a wimp. Even though his first meeting with McCann leaves him badly beaten in an alley, Dutton refuses to take his enemy seriously. Set up and sandbagged at every turn, he and his handlers are so slow to react to McCann's increasingly vicious threats that reader sympathy for their plight evaporates. It also doesn't help that Richardson often writes in short, jerky sentences that derail rather than propel the narrative. And somebody should have removed at least half of the always intrusive, often baffling, italic thoughts and phrases that litter too many pages. 125,000 first printing; major ad/promo. (Feb.) FYI: Richardson, the son of veteran California politician H.L. Richardson, wrote the screenplays of Die Hard II, Bad Boys and The Money Train.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

First novelist Richardson, a screenwriter and the son of California Senator H.L. Richardson, brings impressive credentials to the political thriller genre. Suave young corporate attorney Mitch Dutton is running for Congress in Texas against long-term Republican incumbent "Hurricane" Hammond. When Hammond dies on primary day, apparently of natural causes in a Virginia hunting accident, he is replaced by an unknown dark horse, Shakespeare McCann. "Shakes," as McCann calls himself, alternately beats up opponent Mitch in an alley and hands out free ice cream cones wrapped in red, white, and blue. He also relentlessly manipulates Mitch's wife, sets up the Dutton campaign again and again, and murders any friend or client of Dutton's who haplessly gets in his way. This roller-caster ride of a novel was bought by Ron Howard's production company, undoubtedly because it offers up one astonishing Machiavellian plot twist after another. Recommended.-Susan Zappia, Maricopa Cty. P.L., Phoenix

Library Journal

A wickedly sleazy small-town mano a mano political thriller pits a naive yuppie lawyer against a homicidal cracker in a vicious southern Texas race for the US Congress.

When the perennially elected, gratuitously corrupt, good-old- boy Congressman George "Hurricane" Hammond literally falls off his horse and dies of an all-too-convenient heart attack, his straw-dog Democratic rival, nice-guy attorney Mitch Dutton, wakes up to the possibility that he just might be Washington-bound. He's not exactly a cookie-cutter candidate, though—his marijuana- puffing wife Connie has strange friends; the couple is childless—and Mitch had anticipated a clean, honorable campaign. That last part changes when Shakespeare "Shakes" McCann, a white-haired scallywag with bad skin, determined to be in Hurricane Hammond's boots come November, enters the scene. In McCann, newcomer Richardson, who previously penned the film Die Hard II, has a delightful southern-fried snake-in-the-grass who so sincerely believes that the best man wins in politics that he eagerly murders, blackmails, and even seduces Mitch's wife to challenge his opponet's lead. Among the figures involved in this frequently hilarious duel to the death are Mitch's spineless spin doctor, Fitz Kolatch, who runs the campaign from an ex-brothel; loathsome newspaper reporter Hollice Waters; "gazillionarie" backer Vidor Kingman, and seductive campaign aide Rene Craven. These and other vile schemers, all out to buy, or at least rent, Mitch's idealistic soul, contrast wonderfully with the cheap hypocrisies of the brain- dead electorate of Cathedral Island, a pompous Texas seaside resort town that becomes the microcosm of a political system that, as Richardson describes it, furthers the careers only of the crazy, the homicidal, or the stupid.

Occasionally gory, darkly cynical, over-the-top political slam-dunk, with comic portrayals of campaign tricks so dirty it's amazing that they're legal.

Kirkus Reviews