You Can Run but You Can't Hide by Duane "Dog" Chapman: A Review

"Dog" the Bounty Hunter, the famous reality television star and bounty hunter has penned a book chronicling his life. The book includes stories from Chapman's life years of which were spent on the wrong side of the law. Chapman an ex-con and former biker gang member bluntly tells of his many mistakes in life and his path toward redemption. He gives graphic accounts of his time as a biker and drug user, his path toward Born-Again Christianity and bounty hunting. Naming many influences including his parents, his loving relationship with his mother and the tense often abusive one with his father, "Dog" recounts his life in a way that is not only brutally honest but I found to be potentially helpful to many.

This book is written very simply, there are few large words or dramatic displays of writing skills this is definitely a book written by someone who is out to tell his story not win a Pulitzer. I find this to be fairly refreshing as many books take 50 words to say something that actually can be said in ten. Although the stories in the book are not told in the most politically correct way they are held very true to the un-PC ways life can really be. Be warned parents this book is not for young kids.

In the book "Dog" explains his start in the bounty hunting business; how he helped stop a fellow prisoner from escaping and later wound up catching a fugitive in record time after making a deal with a judge to get help paying a back child support payment. The book also touches on the business side of bounty hunting and bail bonds.

However the most admirable admission is that because of his antics he had to face consequences that kept him from his children. The reader gets the sense that Chapman regrets his actions in the way they affected his children. A father of twelve, he always seems to have his children and wife at heart. Like any parent trying to do whats best for them. Two of his sons and a daughter are also bail bonds people/bounty hunters.

His wife Beth, the youngest woman in the State of Colorado to obtain a bail bonds license ( at the time of recieving it) truly seems, by all accounts in the book, to be his other half balancing Chapman's sometimes too sympathetic and trusting side with a lot of realism. She runs the more technical side of Da Kine Bail Bonds.

In all I would recommend this book to just about anyone who wants an honest story by a man who has learned from his mistakes. As well as admitted many of them --a task many people don't have the guts to do. It is not the most politically correct book ever written-in fact some of the language in individual story recounts can be very graphic, some may even say crude, unfortunately however, that is the way life can be sometimes. When reading it keep in mind that the world that is being translated for us is not PC at all.

I would recommend this book also to anyone who may have a young adult child who may be headed down an overly rebellious and dangerous path. This may be the story that can set them on a better path if retold to them. This is only a suggestion; however, as I think it could be a good real life learning tool.

I would recommend this book to any fan of Dog the Bounty Hunter or true crime books. I enjoy reading biographies and found this one to be very interesting. It retails at $25.95 in most book stores but if you can't spend around twenty-five dollars for a book or don't like to buy books before reading them as I don't it is a good one to get from a library.