Today’s book review is for Muzzle the Black Dog by Mike Cobb a psychological thriller about a sudden uptick in arson coinciding with the arrival of a mysterious drifter.
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Book Synopsis
After a mysterious stranger appears at his isolated cabin door, Jack’s life is forever changed. The stranger’s cryptic message sets off a chain of events that lead Jack on a harrowing journey to uncover the true meaning of his own existence.
As a series of unexplained fires threaten to consume everything he holds dear, Jack is forced to confront his deepest fears and question everything he thought he knew about himself.
Set in the aftermath of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, Jack’s search for the truth takes him to the edge of sanity and puts him on a collision course with a dark and powerful force that has been lurking in the shadows.
Join Jack on a gripping and thought-provoking quest for answers in this thrilling and suspenseful tale of self-discovery and redemption. From Goodreads.
“The black dog, Jack Pate. Muzzle it.”
The Basics
Category: Thriller
Tags: Thriller, suspense, psychological thriller, mystery, fiction, historical fiction
Author: Mike Cobb
Publisher: Waterside Productions, April 2025
Where to Find: Amazon
Overall Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐.5
**Spoilers Ahead**
When Jack opens his cabin door in the middle of the night and finds a disheveled man on his porch, his life is forever altered. The stranger claims he knows Jack and that the two of them are connected, but he won’t reveal anything else about himself. Confused and a little rattled, Jack sets out on a solo investigation to uncover the truth about this mystery man. In doing so, Jack must delve into his past to uncover how this mysterious stranger knows him.
“If bad karma was going to come my way, it had plenty of opportunities to get in.”
So Let’s Get Into it…
The first thing that popped into my head as I started reading was “Jack, why did you have to open your cabin door in the dead of night?” I had a hard time connecting with him in the early chapters of the book. 2025 suburbia may be different from the remote woods of 2004 Georgia, but I couldn’t imagine letting a disheveled looking stranger into my house in the middle of the night (especially as a woman). And on top of that, Jack then lets the guy spend the night at his house. Nope, not for me – maybe I’ve just listened to too many true crime podcasts, but that sounds like the intro of a mysteriously unsolved murder to me.
“It’s true that I had just pulled a gun on my visitor. But I had let him in after all, even though he showed up past midnight, not the middle of the day.”
The stranger, who introduces himself as “Yardley Bennet,” starts revealing hauntingly accurate details about the lives of Jack and his family. The stranger assures Jack that they know each other, but Yardley won’t say how – or why he’s visiting in the first place. As quickly as Yardley appeared, he vanished a few days later without a trace.
When Jack looks around town asking if anyone has seen someone matching Yardley’s description, the responses are all the same: no after no after no. If nobody in town has ever seen or even heard of Yardley, does it mean Jack had dreamt up the bizarre encounter? He begins questioning his sanity and vows to uncover the truth about his late-night visitor.
Jack’s investigation comes to a halt when the police show up at his home asking about recent cabin fires in the area. Jack swears he knows nothing about the fires and tells the police about Yardley Bennet. Though he pleads with the police to believe him, they aren’t buying Jack’s story of a disheveled stranger randomly appearing on his doorstep. As more evidence is uncovered about the crime, Jack becomes the primary suspect for multiple crimes – arson…and murder.
“I was tired of letting it marinate. I wanted answers.”
With Jack’s life quickly unraveling, he begins to recount his past. The author jumps back and forth between three main timelines:2004 (present day setting of the book), 1996 (Centennial Park bombing in Atlanta), and 1978 (Jack’s childhood). Jack continues to try and piece together how he “knows” Yardley how that connects to the crimes wrongfully attributed to him.
In the 1978 time period, we read about how Jack was raised in what we now recognize as an abusive household. He was told repeatedly by his mother that there were two sides to him: “Good Jack” and “Bad Jack.” Whenever “Bad Jack” was around his father would beat him with a belt. None would suspect anything was amiss with the family from the outside, but it is clear that Jack’s abusive childhood caused significant emotional damage.
1996 is an important year in Jack’s life and our story. Jack is attending a concert along with thousands of other spectators in Atlanta’s Centennial Park when the ground is rocked by an explosion. He leaves the aftermath of the bombing physically unscathed minus a cut on his forehead – but mentally he’s left confused and scarred. A couple of days after the calamity, Jack gets into an argument with his wife about raising the kids and he hits a breaking point. The trauma of his abusive upbringing surges to the front of his mind, converging with the emotional damage of surviving a domestic terrorist attack. Jack is kicked out of the house, and he and his wife separate. After selling his dentistry practice, he moves into a secluded cabin in the woods.
“Somehow, I guess, being an outsider was my lot. Always outside looking in.”
The flashback chapters of 1978 and 1996 help the reader understand Jack’s future behaviors and motivations. Just as Jack questioned his sanity and reality, I questioned my own interpretations and assumptions along the way. Could Jack be the one setting these fires? Is Yardley a real person, or a figment of Jack’s imagination? Can Yardley be trusted and what does he really want from Jack? You’ll find yourself asking all these questions – and more – throughout the story!
“Sometimes it takes somebody who cares most about you to pry open your defiant eyes.”
So Bookmark or Bin it?
Conclusion: Bookmark it
The further I got into this book the harder it was to put down! With a 164 page count, Muzzle the Black Dog is the perfect afternoon read (I finished the book in a little over two hours). It’s an ideal book for the beach, a day at the pool, or a flight. The length of the book may be short, but that does nothing to hamper a story filled with mystery, intrigue, and even a redemption arc! The conclusion left me feeling unsettled (in the best possible sense) and contemplative about the story long after I finished the book. As a lover of historical fiction, I really appreciated the setting of the book. Cobb successfully weaves a tale connecting events of the 1996 Centennial Park bombing with a thrilling plot of his own creation, and once you start reading you won’t be able to stop until the end!
Fun Extra Tidbit
Mike Cobb writes “historical fiction with a wicked twist.” Cobb loves researching, which goes hand in hand with the historical fiction part of writing. For the twist part in his writing, Cobb’s focus on crime is a result of the murder of his friend when he was in his teens.
Thanks so much for reading my book review for Muzzle the Black Dog by Mike Cobb. Now it’s your turn! Have you read this novel or any others by Cobb and if so, what are your thoughts? Please feel free to share in the comments below!
Happy reading 😊
