Barking

Holt finished this up in lovely style, and I enjoy his witty, clean, crisp narration. His characters were not likeable, yet I found myself wanting them to succeed- violently, badly, and it kept me reading. The contrast between the "real" life he'd been living before and his "new" life as a werewolf was at times hilarious, at times delightful.

One of my co-workers got me hooked on Tom Holt a while back. I’ve been working my way (slowly) through the backlog of titles Holt wrote before I got clued in. Barking is the newest book, and tells the story of Duncan Hughes, a lawyer-turned-werewolf who has to fight off vampires, hostile werewolves, an undead shapechanger, and his inability to do math.

One of the things I love about writers like Holt and Terry Pratchett is how they can take an absurd little idea like, in the case of Barking, someone being out of step with reality by 0.1% and spin 400 pages or more of absurdist plot around it. Barking is wonderful absurd. It hooked me right from the start. (I read more than 250 pages of it last night before I made myself pack it in.)

I show more think this book was the perfect storm for me. It had great characters. At first, I was a little leery of the main character, Duncan Hughes, because he sounded like many of the mild-mannered wimps that often get sucked into evil corporation/contemporary fantasy novels. But Duncan surprised me. Well before the end of the book, he was tough and wily–just what you want in a werewolf. It had a fantastic (in both senses of the word) plot, with plenty of twists and turns. There was even a false ending in there, for good measure. And it had humor. I’ve mentioned before that a book has to be extraordinarily funny to make me laugh while I read it. Barking had me laughing through out. It was a very fun read. show less

Everybody knows that lawyers are all ambulance chasers or bloodsuckers. Since this is Tom Holt and the story involves 2 law firms, one of vampires and one of werewolves, it isn't hard to figure out which one is which. Holt is a little less subtle in the jokes but not much.

Barking is a nice change from the setting of J W Wells, but the overall plot isn't that different. Innocent naif winds up in the middle of the supernatural running as more-or-less normal business in London. Finds girl. Loses girl. Gets girl back. Lives happily ever after, often in America. Why is it that America is some idealized land to various supernatural Londoners? In Vintage Holt style it gets a little slow in the middle while it transitions from the puns, jokes, show more and innuendo to setting up the hero, heroine, and bad guy for the inevitable fight, non-traditional victory and happy ending with more jokes, innuendo and puns.

Holt really likes a pun, especially when he can sneak it up on you, and he can be snarky with some fairly purple prose. If lawyer-werewolf jokes and lines like "Obviously, she must have hidden depths, like the Atlantic (dark, murky, inhabited by pale creepy things with huge eyes and rows of needle-sharp teeth)." are your thing, you'll enjoy Barking. show less

Humdrum "death and taxes" lawyer Duncan Hughes, divorced, very settled in a lonely and boring life, gets involved with werewolves, vampires, and even a shape-shifting unicorn.
At first I was very enthousiastic about this book: good writing, nice characters, original plot, lots of suspense, not too silly and formulaic, not too highbrow.
After finishing it, my enthousiasm is a bit less: while this is a very nice fantasy/thriller, the plot is not really good enough for 400+ pages. The tension dips, and the reader starts thinking "what is the use of all this" - and I for one did not find a satisfying answer. So: a very nice read, but spun out a bit too long.”

Barking is a clever approach to the werewolf genre - werewolf lawyers. It's strictly comedy with frequent insightful wit along the way. However, at times Holt does tend to pad out chapters with unnecessary internal monologue. The story itself weaves a line which occasionally slips in to confusion rather than the intended chaos, although there are plenty of recaps to keep the fast paced story in focus. Barking has plenty of magic moments, some very well though out narrative and some top quality originality. Barking is a recommended, if lengthy, read.

My favorite [a:Tom Holt|9766|Tom Holt|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1246502762p2/9766.jpg] book so far. Still the subtle British humor and obscure (to me) British references. Still the real complicated and maybe not completely consistent plot, and a lot of fun.

As in "The Portable Door", Tom Holt creates another workplace mythology in which a hapless nobody finds himself drawn into supernatural intrigue in which he plays a crucial role. As in his other books, Holt is inventive and entertaining. This is somewhat more fast-moving than the Portable Door series but not as fast as "Expecting Someone Taller", which is perhaps my favorite Holt.