Black Dogs Review

Book: Black Dogs: The Possibly True Story of Classic Rock's Greatest Robbery
Author: Jason Buhrmester
March 10/2010



The great British band Led Zeppelin gets our attention in the book by Jason Buhrmester, called Black Dogs. He introduces us to a fictional group of inept criminals led by one slightly more thoughtful mastermind. The other people’s stolen property doesn’t hold any value to them.
This is a story about the Led Zeppelin robbery which many of their fans don’t know about. In 1973, after three sold-out performances at Madison Square Garden, they had a lot of money stolen from a safe-deposit box at the Drake Hotel in what was called the single highest deposit box theft in the city’s history. Neither the evidence nor the money was ever found and no one was formally accused.
After what happened in New York City three decades after we may get some resolution from Jason Buhrmeste. This ragtag group swindles its way near Led Zeppelin on two occasions in pursuit of treasure. Nineteen-year-old Baltimorean-turned-New Yorker, Patrick Sullivan and his band of rock friends pulled off the heist. Patrick's Baltimore posse, such as it is, will never be mistaken for the Gambino Family. Hapless Alex should probably find another best pal, considering how Patrick has betrayed him. Smart-ass Frenchy lives for his guitar and little else. And Keith is the dumbest member of the group of people who aren’t that bright either. The plot twists bring even more wild characters into the fold, including Boogie, a safe-cracker with a funk band called the New York Giants, and mentally ill Backwoods Billy, a born-again biker who leads the Holy Ghosts Christian motorcycle gang.
This book is written with passion and with love for music. It is interesting, and fun to read because of the plot and the street language. There are simple dialogues with dirty words, which are the common in the world in which the main characters live. The language sounds natural and is the way of talking to people who are twenty years old and live mostly on the streets. The female characters are so naïve that sometimes it is hard to believe how people could be naive. The boys’ characters are exactly the same from the beginning of the story to the last page. The action of the book is interesting, but the first four chapters are boring. But the book was well researched - making the story seem so much more real while you read. The characters are people we all know, many of them are around us.
Every newspaper in New York ran a major story on Led Zeppelin being ripped off. The headline read LED ZEPPLIN ROBBED OF 203 G. 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. The author has proven that he has affection for rock 'n' roll's. The book is not about a bunch of morons but about music. The book never forgets that without the music, the whole thing means nothing.