Black Dogs (The Possibly True Story of Classic Rock's Greatest Robbery) - Jason Buhrmester

Book Details

Country: USA
Language: English
Genre: Crime
Publisher: Broadway Books
Publication Date: 2009


Fictional Artist: New York Giants
Genre: Funk
Country: USA
Real World Analogue: New York Giants, Led Zeppelin

Jacket Blurb: 

In July 1973, Led Zeppelin played three sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Before the final performance, $203,000 of the band’s money went missing from a safe deposit box at the Drake Hotel in what was called the single highest deposit box theft in the city’s history. The money was never recovered. Black Dogs might be the story behind the greatest rock ’n’ roll heist of all time.

the last thing nineteen-year-old Patrick Sullivan needed was a new scam. Just months earlier, he had left a trail of broken friendships and new enemies in Baltimore for a fresh start in New York City after a botched robbery attempt landed one of his best friends in jail. But when he spies a briefcase full of cash backstage at a Led Zeppelin concert, Patrick makes plans for one last crazy mission–one that he hopes will redeem him in the eyes of everyone he left behind.

To pull it off, Patrick will have to return to his hometown to round up his crew: Alex, the one who did time for Patrick’s last crime; Frenchy, the neurotic musician who still lives with Mom; and dim-witted but endearing Keith, the greasy-haired loner who excels at installing car stereos and then uninstalling them, all in the same day.

When the unlikely team’s plan goes horribly wrong, the boys find themselves mixed up with Backwoods Billy, the psychotic leader of the Holy Ghosts Christian motorcycle gang. They need some help, and they find it in some unlikely places: by crossing paths and making deals with a pill-popping DA, a safe-cracking funk band called the New York Giants, and the Maryland chapter of the Misty Mountain Hoppers Led Zeppelin Fan Club. Sporting a rare 1958 Les Paul guitar and a complicated plan that could either go wonderfully right or horribly wrong, the guys, fueled by beer and egos, make a desperate attempt at robbing the world’s coolest rock band–to hilarious result.

Black Dogs brings to life one of the infamously unsolved rock ’n’ roll mysteries and introduces us to a lovable bunch of knuckleheads who may have just pulled off the greatest heist in rock ’n’ roll history.

Review:

After three sold-out performances at Madison Square Garden in 1973 to promote their recently-released Houses of the Holy album, $203,000 disappeared from a safety deposit box at Led Zeppelin's hotel. The culprits were never found, and the money (worth well over a million in 2017 dollars) was never recovered. This bit is definitely true; in fact, the theft was said to have been responsible for the three year delay in releasing The Song Remains The Same film recorded at those shows.

Jason Buhrmester's Black Dogs is billed as the 'possibly true story' of how that money went missing.

The story is centred on Patrick Sullivan and his ne'er-do-well friends, a bunch of self-absorbed, criminally-inclined, music-obsessed 19 year-olds in Baltimore. Having learned that the band were to be in a three day residency and that they'd be holding large quanties of cash until the banks reopened on Monday, the group decide they're going to steal it.

What follows is an enjoyable heist novel with large slabs of farce; not a million miles away from a Hiaasen in terms of the cartoonish plot. The lads get involved in stealing a 1958 Les Paul as a key component of the Zep heist. Unfortunately, it belongs to a Bible-quoting biker gang, as does the safe they also steal and which puts their very lives in danger before they can even think of ripping off rock's largest band. A safe-cracking funk group completes the set up at the Baltimore end.

The heist itself is almost perfunctory. It's not complicated and it's certainly not clever, but it works. The sections with Zeppelin do rather come across as being fictionalised from the well-known accounts of Zep on tour accounts, most particularly Stephen Davis' Hammer of the Gods. Zep tour manager Richard Cole comes across as the animal he was said to be during those years, as does manager Grant. Mick Wall's more recent When Giants Walked the Earth biography also paints a picture that gels with the scenes Buhrmester writes, so the authenticity factor is high. And yet, somehow that's its failing too. The prose during these sections seems a little bit stiff. There was an early section in the book where Patrick and Alex are backstage at a Zep show and he seems a little too keen to drop large chunks from the set list into the scene as though we wouldn't believe it if he just said, "They played Communication Breakdown for 40 minutes".

Overall, Black Dogs is a cracking read. Funny, engaging and thrilling in the right measure. What's perhaps strangest for a book that is clearly trying to appeal to their fans is that it's pretty clear that our narrator - and judging by the biographical information on the jacket, the author - thinks Zeppelin are over-rated. He much prefers Black Sabbath.