The Dead Run: The Legend of El Cucuy by Adam Mansbach

The Dead Run: The Legend of El Cucuy Reviews

• 
  Greg

  After talking with Karen today I think my taste in books is becoming erratic and suspect. There are things like Fantasticland that I probably should have loved, but which I had gripes about that I can't remember the details of. I don't know if this book is the same.
  
  Maybe it's really better than I thought, and I just saw there is a sequel to it, and I'm actually curious to read it, just because I'm not exactly sure how he is going to handle the story from the point that it ended here.
  
  My big problem with the book was it felt so uneven. Or maybe this is me (or maybe I need to stop blaming myself if I don't like a book). It would fluctuate between being something I was excited to keep reading to just wanting to put it down and go do almost anything else with my time. These feelings would sometimes happen within a couple of pages of one another, and it happened over and over again.
  
  Except for leafing through Go The Fuck to Sleep, I've never read Adam Mansbach. I get the feeling he's a good writer. You know like a good literary writer.
  
  People (myself included for quite awhile) kind of shit on genre fiction as being not as well written and all of that garbage. I think that this is sorta bullshit these days. Well kind of, I think most genre fiction is garbage, but then I think most things that aim for mainstream, or literary or whatever you want to call it fiction is also garbagey. Or maybe I'm just overly cynical after the type of reading I've done in the last four years. (I should add the disclaimer to both statements that while there is a lot of garbage, there is also a lot of great stuff, too. There is just so much stuff published that there can be a lot of both)
  
  Why do I bring up this tired debate of genre vs. not-genre fiction? Because I think that people sometimes miss what makes genre fiction so good (or at least thriller/mystery/crime novels), it is the pacing. I'm not talking about being a 'page-turner' necessarily (that implies a certain type of writing that hooks the reader and at obvious places you would break there is something that makes you want to read just that one more chapter to find out what happens next, and this is a skill in itself so it doesn't come across like some cheesy cliff-hanger), but being almost ruthlessly economical in what is and isn't written. Great writers in the 'genres', people like Lawrence Block, or John D. MacDonald are amazing at this. They drive their stories forward relentlessly while also having the ability to interweave details to flush out their characters from being stock figures in stories that when done poorly could have been more enjoyably watched in a 40 minute TV show than in a three hundred page novel.
  
  I think that was the problem for me here, the pacing was off. And this was probably because of all the different story lines he was juggling at one time. Some of the story lines were better than others, some of the characters in some of the story lines were more developed than others (likewise, some of the story lines were populated with flat stock characters). I think there was too much going on and it made the book feel uneven It's tough to leave a story line with a girl beating on someone with her mom's severed head and not keep that kind of awesomeness going on where you move the story off to
  
  The story itself was really a kind of unique take on the horror/thriller genre. That's kind of why I'm interested to see what may happen in the sequel. I'm not sure who I would recommend this book to though. It's a little too inbetween a few different things.
  
  
• 
  Natalie

  While I do harbor a deep and abiding love for zombies, I don’t typically go for horror novels. I read R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike and all that other fluffy crap when I was younger but somehow I never got around to graduating to actual horror as I got older. In the last couple of years I’ve stumbled across a couple of things here and there that strike my fancy(Joe Hill in particular) but I’ve never been motivated to search out new horror novels. So when I pulled The Dead Run out of my swag bag from Harper Collins I was fairly skeptical about it. And I will be totally honest and admit that it took a fair bit of talking to myself to add it into the rotation.
  
  At which point I promptly read it in two days despite a busy weekend at GenCon.
  
  The premise of the book is pretty easy to follow. Our main character Jess Galvan is offered his freedom from a Mexican jail if he agrees to run a package across the border. Of course, the fact that he’s being given this bargain by some creepy god-like figure living in the basement of the prison and that the package is suitably supernatural, this is obviously not going to end well. Tied up in all of this, but unbeknownst to Galvan, a number of girls have gone missing and evil is pretty much running rampant. Galvan accepts the deal and sets off across the desert with five other criminals who have been chosen as his companions. I’ll stop there to avoid spoiling any major plot points.
  
  So, my favorite thing about this book is that there aren’t any really good characters. Everyone in the book is either a little bit morally gray or just completely bloody evil. Morally gray is an area that I enjoy in a character because I think it adds a lot of realism to a book, even one that is heavy on the supernatural. It’s hard to be wholly “good” in the world. We can either follow the rules or we can follow a more personal code of honor. Neither is a perfect option and a lot of this book is about watching Jess Galvan try to figure out how to play by the rules of the game he’s been dragged in to or play by the rules of his conscious. To me, that’s the most interesting portion of the story and I would have liked significantly more depth to all the characters, not just Galvan. I understand why this isn’t always possible though and there’s enough moving the plot along to make it a good read without the extra character development. There were also a couple of plot points that I would have liked to see more of as well, but as the book is already close to 300 pages I’m not super surprised that some things had to be glossed over. Not everyone wants to read books that weigh more than a small child.
  
  All in all, it’s a good read. Not overly terrifying so more enjoyable for a wider audience. There is violence throughout the book but nothing close to the splatterpunk levels you see in some novels. And the book doesn’t need excessive terror or gore to stand so I’m glad it wasn’t shoved in randomly. The end leaves an opening for a sequel, but I think this is one that I would prefer to see remain a stand alone.
  
  
  http://inkylibrarian.wordpress.com/20...
• 
  Sarah

  This book was pretty entertaining and it perfectly fit my October Horror-Fest thing. There were multiple storylines going on and sometimes it did become a bit confusing. I also didn't like either of the two main female characters. Basically, it was flawed in many ways but it actually was an enjoyable book, and when you're rooting for the protagonist to "Eat the dead virgin's heart!" you pretty much know that the author has made your brain his slave :) It had some interesting noir and western elements that were very light but added an interesting flavor to the book.
• 
  Roger

  Even a reader as jaded as myself can on occasionally fall for advertising. The Dead Run looked like an exciting supernatural thriller but really it is just a mediocre potboiler only my stubbornness allowed me to finish. Lots of action but by the time the book is finished you won't care.
• 
  Bandit

  For some reason, probably to do with the title and the cover, I expected a zombie read. So it was a pleasant surprise, since zombies are quite ubiquitous these days and good original horror stories are pretty difficult to come by. And this was definitely good and original, the author utilized ancient Latin American mythology to infuse this thriller with a supernatural theme. The book is a mix of action and horror, mixed evenly and told in an uber testosterony tough guy narration. I mean, this book was seriously tough, so tough the main protagonist lives his life to an internal rap soundtrack. This book was so tough that chicklit wouldn't even dare to share a bookshelf space with it. Doing time for a crime that wasn't really a crime, set up and locked away, Jess (dude's name) keeps pumping his muscles and dreaming of being reunited with his daughter, when he gets chosen to become a Righteous Messenger to complete the ancient rites and release evil upon the earth. Strong supporting characters, uniformly solid writing, occasionally too macho, but with enough heart to back it up, this was the sort of thriller that actually thrills. Fun read. Recommended.
• 
  Eileen

  This has to be the most ridiculously macho book I have ever read and I read a LOT of Warhammer 40k.
• 
  Bill

  
  The Dead Run: A Novel by
  Adam Mansbach is a decent, light read that at times goes for layered and literary and at other times finds pretty right-on social commentary. I wanted to love the primary characters, but they tend to be a little static and flat. Good as a genre piece.
• 
  Joe

  The Dead Run chiefly concerns felons from a Mexican prison, a twisted religious cult, an honest sheriff, a corrupt federale, an anti-immigrant Motorcycle gang, an army of sand-burrowing undead teenage girls, and a resurrected Aztec God- all duking it out in the southwestern desert. It should surprise no one that I loved this book. It was no Great Gatsby or A Separate Peace, but it was surely the Brothers Karamazov of Southwestern supernatural action/horror.
• 
  Dark Faerie Tales

  Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales
  
  Quick & Dirty: Tasked with carrying a package to an unknown location, Jess Galvan is about to get a lot more than he bargained for. For the chance to see his daughter again though, any risk is worth the price.
  
  Opening Sentence: It was almost dawn and Mulligan was nine-tenths dead, dragging one leg after the other out of sheer dumb will.
  
  The Review:
  
  I spent the first 30-40% of this book mentally writing my 2 star review, planning on citing the unlikeable characters and some distasteful content as reasons for my dislike of the novel. Then, a funny thing happened. I started having a harder time putting the book down. The ends of chapters would leave me anxious, desperately wanting to know what would happen next. I’m not sure exactly how that happened, but I’m definitely not complaining about it!
  
  The main plot revolves around a handful of characters. The true main character in my opinion is Jess Galvan. Galvan has spent the last year in a Mexican prison, serving time for ticking off the wrong guy. All Galvan wants is to see his daughter again and get custody of her from her mother. After a prison riot, a mysterious man makes Galvan an offer he can’t refuse: deliver a package for him, and he can have his freedom. Thus begins a journey that is going to be much more complicated and dangerous than Galvan could have imagined.
  
  Sherry is a teenage girl, new to the area. After spending a day at the pool to get away from her religious fanatic mother, Sherry is kidnapped by a terrifying man. Thus begins the longest day of her life.
  
  Nichols is a Texas sheriff, frustrated by the hand he’s been dealt in life. He’s contacted by Sherry’s mother, who is convinced something awful has happened. While investigating, Nichols meets Ruth Cantwell, a therapist who is close to Sherry. Together, they embark on a journey that will forever change them.
  
  As I stated before, none of the characters start off (and in some cases, never become) very likeable. This made it very hard for me to get through the first part of the book. We’re told Galvan wants to reunite with his daughter, but that comes off as an afterthought, making it seem like the fact is just there to make the reader think “this is a good guy.” The actions he makes didn’t endear Galvan to me. It wasn’t until he met up with the real bad guys that I started to root for him, almost a case of choosing the lesser of two evils.
  
  Sherry, on the other hand, started out unlikeable, but then became a character you could really root for. She starts out so weak that I rolled my eyes repeatedly at her actions. The moment she started to change, I found myself looking forward to every one of her chapters.
  
  After a slow start, the plot really picks up. By the time you reach the halfway point, the book is pretty much nothing but action. Every chapter leaves you wanting more. It should be said that this book isn’t for those with weak stomachs. While not gratuitously graphic, there are some scenes that are hard to read. If you can deal with the violence and the slow start though, then you should really give this book a chance. I will definitely be checking out more by this author!
  
  Notable Scene:
  
  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked, nodding at the shotgun.
  
  Nichols unfolded his sunglasses and slid them on, the metal frames still cool from the air-conditioned ride.
  
  “Heavy artillery tends to make folks less cooperative. I like to start with a nice friendly chat, build my way up to the armed standoff from there. That work for you, doc, or would you rather wait in the car? ‘Cause technically, you know, you really shouldn’t be here at all.”
  
  And neither should I, Nichols thought.
  
  Cantwell’s reply was low and even. “These are bad people, Sheriff.”
  
  “And yet, amazingly, they have rights. Some of them even take to a court of law to defend those rights when they get trampled.” Nichols squared his shoulders to her. “Look, whenever it’s humanly possible, I do things by the book, because that book was written by smarter sons of bitches than me, and it was written to keep sons of bitches like me alive. It’s bad enough I’m investigating outside my jurisdiction, on your tip. But until I find some evidence, that’s all it is – a tip. So forgive me if I don’t start blasting away at everything that moves like this was Grand Theft Auto. We understand each other?”
  
  Cantwell’s mouth was drawn tight. “Yes.”
  
  “Peachy. Come on, then.” Nichols hitched up his belt and headed for the building. Halfway there, he turned to her. “For the record, I got nothing against Grand Theft Auto. It’s a damn fun game.”
  
  FTC Advisory: Harper Voyager provided me with a copy of The Dead Run. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
• 
  Sara Roberts

  *This review is based on an Advance Reader copy from the publisher*
  This was highly entertaining! Great action that grabs you from the get-go and doesn't let up. Jess, our "hero", is a stand-up guy who kicks major ass. He is certainly flawed, but has a definite code of ethics that he follows religiously (for lack of a better term), whether he is in a shady bar south of the border, an even shadier Mexican prison, or when he's trekking across the desert with a band of convicts on a shadier yet mission. Sent into the desert to carry a package over the border to the US by a mysterious figure from the bowels of the prison, Jess has to depend on his wits and his unique skill set to survive and try to figure what he's actually been sent to do. His story intertwines with that of his estranged daughter, Sherry, who is on the run from a strange cult leader, and that of an aging football-star sheriff who's just trying to make sense of the whole situation and not get killed in the process. Very well paced, action sequences were well written. Characters are well-developed. Jess is one of my favorite characters of recent memory. And I have to say, for someone who doesn't usually like movie adaptations of books, this book would make a fantastic movie (think Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez).
• 
  Megan

  I thoroughly enjoyed this book. After reading the book's summary, I was interested, but reading the prologue sealed the deal. I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped by page three. I needed to read this book! And thank goodness, the rest of the book did not disappoint. I was never bored and was repeatedly (and pleasantly) shocked. There was no lack of action or suspense, and my favorite aspect? The humor. While one might not pick up this book expecting to chuckle to themselves throughout, that is exactly what happened to me. Very enjoyable read!
• 
  Jodi

  cheesy
• 
  Alicia

  I thought this was going to he a sort of prison break novel of a guy on the run, but was pleasantly surprised by the supernatural element thrown in. I very much enjoyed the characters and the story even if changing characters and point of view every chapter was a bit jarring. However, once I got used to it I enjoyed that aspect seeing how they all came together. It was beautifully done in the end!
  Admittedly, it took just a bit for me to get into this book but then I was hooked. I read it in about two days I believe. I fully intend to read the next one because I must know what happens!
• 
  David Young

  I enjoyed that this plot of this book was something new not just a variation of the same old theme. I even enjoyed most of the writing. Why only a three? It is one of those books that could have ended a few chapters sooner. Every time it neared a climax what ever could go wrong for the heros would. The whole Murphy’s law scenario grows old after the 4th time.
• 
  Jim Stennett

  Picked up this book as a Corona Lockdown-read and was pleasantly surprised. The dust jacket preview doesn’t tell you everything and I’m glad it didn’t. Plenty of twists and turns in a highly entertaining novel. Second half does not quite keep up with first half and characters make some pretty stupid decisions at time, but it is still a lot of fun.
• 
  Nathaniel

  While Mansbach certainly has some clever ideas and some truly inspired turns of phrase, overall, this is a tired, sad, and uninspiring book, lacking memorable characters and nuanced, uncontrived plot points.
• 
  Gregory Stevens

  This book is weird and really not my thing. When zombies and vampires show up in my book, I usually put it down and read something else. I didn't in this one because I was intrigued how all the characters would eventually together.
• 
  Chris Bartling

  Solid concept with the Virgin Army.
• 
  Steven Karalash

  #springhorror #Readathon #thedeadrun @adammansbach
  
  https://mysternightowl.wordpress.com/...
• 
  Sarah

  3.5
  It was curious. Not my normal style. Slightly high on zombies. But had an interesting take on Mexican folklore. Liked enough to reserve the sequel but would not say favourite.
• 
  Karen

  I’m not sure what it is but I just couldn’t get into this book
• 
  Danilo Silva

  I enjoyed the story although with some fictional nuances about gods and living dead it was interested anyways.
• 
  Marnie Z

  dnf
• 
  Martha Steele

  Yeah it was very macho but it had a "From Dusk Till Dawn" vibe. It reads great as a horror novel. Ridiculous? Yes. A fun horror ride? Absolutely.
• 
  Whiteraven191

  Part of my "Reading the Lowest-Rated Books on my TBR List" Challenge
  
  Average rating as of writing this review: 3.26
  
  There was a lot of violence against women baked into the premise of the novel and I just found it kind of exhausting. If you could look past that, though, this was a pretty fun and exciting horror/thriller story.
• 
  The Hardcover Honey

  
  http://www.thehorrorhoneys.com
  Twitter: @jbrivard
  
  Adam Mansbach is the author of several earlier works, and may be best known for his parody kid's book "Go the Fuck to Sleep", but he's trying his hand at a new genre with his book "The Dead Run", and it's a solid effort. A catchy title and cover image drew me in quickly and I found it hard to put down. A great opening line in Chapter 1 ("Jess Galvan walked past at least five of the seven deadly sins before he even reached the bar") gets things off to a speedy start and Mansbach never takes his foot off the gas.
  
  The ostensible hero of the book, Jess Galvan, gets himself mixed up in some bad shit right off the bat and when he tries to do the moral thing, he's rewarded with a trip to hardcore Ojos Negros prison. Galvan's chapters are balanced by two other storylines - one focusing on Sherry Richards, a wallflower Texas teenager whose mom has gotten them involved in a local cult lead by the charismatic and seemingly ageless Aaron Seth, and the other focusing on Sheriff Bob Nichols, a burned-out former jock in an ill-equipped and underfunded department in the same town. When Sherry disappears and Sheriff Bob is called to investigate, he teams up local therapist Ruth Cantwell, who had been counseling Sherry and her mom since their departure from the cult compound. Sixty-seven miles of desolation lie between Nichols and his Mexican counterpart, Fuentes, and strange things seem to be happening in the desert.
  
  Meanwhile, when Galvan is told during a prison yard workout that he's been summoned by "El Cucuy", he laughs it off - El Cucuy, you see, is the boogeyman of Ojos Negros Prison, something the guards use to make prisoners fall in line, a fable, a story. When Galvan wakes up chained to a handful of other prisoners in the basement of Ojos Negros and is told to fight for his life, he learns that El Cucuy is all too real. Not only is El Cucuy real, he's been around a while. And I mean a while. And El Cucuy has a job for Galvan. Galvan is to be his Righteous Messenger, carrying a box across the miles of desert for a very special delivery. What's in the box, you ask? Oh, just the still-beating heart of a virginal young girl. Which can only be delivered by "a pure man". El Cucuy needs it delivered to his son, the aforementioned Aaron Seth. Then, and only then, will their new world order commence. Or so thinks the wretched Aaron Seth.
  
  Galvan sets off across the desert, and here's where the action really kicks in - there's some supernatural backstory about El Cucuy's wife who died at his hand, but the important takeaway here is that she now commands the long-rumored "Virgin Army" who lie beneath the sand and interfere with El Cucuy's repeated delivery attempts. Will Galvan succeed where other "pure men" have failed? Will Sheriff Bob be able to find missing teenager Sherry Richards before her V-card makes her yet another victim of the cruel men who populate the book? As the storylines hurtle towards one another, you'll appreciate some awesomely cinematic set pieces, including the appearance of the Virgin Army (think mini-skirted undead hotties who pull themselves up out from underneath the sand "like a swimmer boosting herself out of the water"), an amazing car chase sequence involving cars and motorcycles, some amputations, white-robed cult elders and people bathing in a literal hot tub full of the blood of virgins. It took me back to my middle-school years with the Stephen Kings and the Robert McCammons - sprawling stories of people good and evil converging on one another.
  
  Hardcover Honey says - You'll love it.
• 
  Melissa Yardley

  I liked this one more than I thought I would. I was expecting a bit of a throw away read, just something quick and interesting but not worth much. I actually felt like I got much more than that. The story was pretty engaging and there were a few turns I wasn't expecting.