At some point in this mystery involving online role-playing games,
you could get the impression that you’re one point-and-click away from
showing up in a game yourself.

Like when Hailey the wolf materializes out of fictional ether. Or
when the place where the protagonist hopes to restore his spiritual
center turns out to be an Oracle Road sex shop. Or when a voice
suddenly booms, “YOU CAN’T BE HERE,” as old Mrs. Kraus sits at her
computer in the middle of the night, nursing a recently killed avatar
back to life in an Edenic setting among chirping birds and soaring
butterflies.

Mrs. Kraus is startled. You’re startled. It’s fun. It’s funny. It’s
frenetic. It’s fiction in a 21st-century place where the veil between
reality and fantasy floats thin.

The fifth work in the “Mad Dog and Englishman” series, Server
Down is split-set between the Kansas home of Mad Dog and his
brother (Sheriff English), and Tucson—Kansas-born author J.M.
Hayes’s current hometown.

The action opens at the traditional Yaqui Good Friday ceremony in
Pascua Village. Sheriff English’s law-school daughter, Heather, has
come to Tucson for a symposium. She witnessed some of the Yaqui Easter
ceremonies and e-mailed her wannabe-shaman uncle, Mad Dog, that these
rituals are not to be missed. Without notifying anyone, Mad Dog and his
wolf-hybrid Hailey jumped into his Mini Cooper and arrived around
midnight. But before he gets to appreciate the sight of the women
protecting Christ from the evil Chapeyekas, Mad Dog is accosted by a
guy in braids and beads. Braids-and-beads guy stabs a cop with a
switchblade bearing Mad Dog’s name and escapes.

Meanwhile, Mad Dog’s house in Kansas has been firebombed, and his
brother thinks he might have a family death to investigate.

By the time Heather realizes that Mad Dog’s in Tucson—after
ambulances, jurisdictional squabbling between police, and a connection
made between her and the murder suspect—Mad Dog has lost himself
in the neighborhood, and braids-and-beads has shucked the Sioux
trappings, become “The Professional” (assassin) and contracted to
execute some nasty work on Heather’s pretty, 23-year-old self.

That’s all within the first couple dozen pages. You need to hang
on.

The central mystery in the book is who is after Mad Dog, and why.
Even The Professional is in the dark (which allows for a nifty plot
twist). The action in Tucson has Heather searching for Mad Dog as she’s
tracked by a cop being tracked by The Professional. The action in
Kansas has Sheriff English shuffling along behind a walker from one
firebombing to another, and Mrs. Kraus doing detective work by playing
the War of Worldcraft game. Their suspect turns out to be a
virtual level-70 vampire wizard called Fig Zit.

The mystery is layered, and plot and themes are informed and
complicated by the game.

Hayes’s heroes are both likable and so bigger than life that they
stretch credibility. Mad Dog, old enough to barely remember his hippie
period, is a buff, bald pacifist. He looks like a gringo and identifies
with his watered-down Cheyenne blood, and he practices a form of native
religion.

Clever Heather is not only a law student, but also a deputy sheriff.
She can run for long periods without tiring, call out straggling
coyotes with an impressive howl, and flout attackers with tae kwon
do.

And then there’s Mad Dog’s wolf, Hailey. Omnipresent. Omniscient.
Probably omnivorous.

Hayes writes deftly. His descriptions are visual enough to imagine
Server Down as a graphic novel. Although he slathers
implausibilities throughout (All three actors are about to show up in
the same emergency room? Hailey has once again arrived in the nick of
time?), you accept them as part of the ride. He smoothly integrates the
action and manipulates suspense through tight cuts. Most entertaining
of all, however, is his narrator’s sanguinely ironic voice. It’s a lot
like Mad Dog’s; it just doesn’t take itself too seriously.

And there’s message in the madcap of Server Down. It won’t
give anything away to say that it involves the ease with which players
are “killed” and “resurrected” in virtual reality.

The book is a kick to read. And it’s quick: Thanks to technology,
the mystery plays out in one night. If Mad Dog survives, he should be
able to make it to Saturday’s Pascua “Gloria”—the great
ceremonial battle between good and evil that will lead to the Easter
resurrection.

Hmm. I wonder if anyone ever considered turning that into a
game?

This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2009.