This was my first Tom Holt book, follow ups included a quick read i cant find here but was awesome in its portrayal of a man creeping along a tunnel hunting a monster. Of course this lead me to the second proper book of his i have which is 'you dont have to be evil to work here but it helps' which compaired to this one is a let down not only because an ex gf caught me reading it and is now convinced that she turned me to Tom Holt and now uses this whenere i run into her (which is too often we share the same bus) but because that book was not nearly as good as this one.I could tell you what Barking is about but theres a lil info blob on the books cover so read that instead.I will warn you that if like me you fear paperwork and the though of living the rest of your life in an office scares you to death this book really trys to calm you down.'Shhh baby' It coos paticently 'life wont be that bad, see you could become a werewolf, wont taht be fun?'And it even has a happly ever after end that felt like a sop to me personaly (not saying i didnt enjoy or accpet the sop freely). Twas actully heart warming in a strange way.Oh wait Barking is the one about the werewolfs isnt it?Id best check.Ill rewrite this later....Ahem, yes it is.I was a bit shocked there but okay.What I learned from this book...That maybe having a proper carrer (originaly i wanted to be a suitcase so i wouldnt have to deal with paperwork) mightnt be so bad.It may actually be fun.
What do you do when you're a mediocre lawyer who hates his job? And your best friend from school (who you now realized you never liked all that much), shows up again? And you're suddenly fired from your job? And your old friend bites you and you are instantly a werewolf? But you now make tons of money? Then find out your ex-wife is actually a vampire? And you now have an urge to chase a unicorn, and gnaw table legs, and can catch a rubber ball almost before you realize it's been thrown?Read "Barking" and find out.
MY TAKE:I liked this book – the plot was imaginative and quirky, with interesting characters. The plot was very twisty – I was never quite sure where it was going, and sometimes not really clear on what was going on.The werewolf transformations were … disappointing. Hollywood, books, etc build an expectation of painful, gory, complex transformations, but in this book just a simple step into the moonlight resulted in a magical instantaneous transformation. The pack mentality was a strong theme th
—Sara
Barking is a clever book that combines the common theme of vampires versus werewolves with the not-so-common theme of, well, lawyers. The result is a book full of inside jokes about practicing law in England with enough of the supernatural thrown in to keep non-lawyers interested. The only thing that bothered me was Holt's inability to avoid too much of a good thing. The biggest example of this is his climax-by-dialogue in which minor bursts of action are interspersed between really long conversations. The dialogue is funny (think British, dry, deadpan, etc.), but it's less funny when the same set-up is used repeatedly with slightly different punch lines. I definitely enjoyed the book, but perhaps future efforts could take the advice of The King and employ "a little less conversation."
—Brian
