Bareback - Hardcover

Kit Whitfield

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022407864X ISBN 13: 9780224078641

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 2006

Synopsis

Biology is destiny. For those born feet-first, life is normal. Civil rights are enshrined in law, the world is a comfortable place, and every full moon night, you lock yourself in a secure room to fur up in peace. But for those born head-first, the damage done is more than just physical. For a non, locked in his or her human skin, is first and foremost a conscript, drafted at eighteen into DORLA, the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity. For a DORLA agent, insultingly referred to as a 'bareback', full moon creates a battle zone, where they patrol the silent night in search of citizens breaking the curfew. The rest of the month is a civil service nightmare, mopping up the after-effects of the trespasses, the fights and the maulings. DORLA has lasted centuries, since the Inquisition first set it up, and it's no less hated now than it was then. Lola Galley, twenty-eight and already a scarred veteran, is assigned to defend a curfew-breaker who mutilated a good friend of hers. She doesn't want the case, but she's used to doing things she doesn't want. Only something happens: her maimed friend is murdered before her client can be tried. Lola wants justice. She'll settle for the truth. But in a divided world, asking for the truth may bring answers that you don't want to hear. Kit Whitfield has created a world that is wholly, unnervingly convincing. "Bareback" shows her to be a novelist of rare gifts and astonishing imagination.

About this title

Review:

"a stunning imaginative feat that immerses the reader in a dark,
dangerous and entirely believable world"
-- Tina Jackson, METRO, 31st July 2006

'Fresh and beautiful . . . Take your time reading it . . . It puts you in that reading bubble, ever sought, not often found' -- Scifantastic, 18th July 2006

'Lola is an outstandingly well-realized central character. We get right inside her head, feeling all her emotions vividly... splendidly entertaining' -- Emerald City, 24th July 2006

Gritty and original... an interesting parable about social justice’
-- Rachel Hore, Guardian

From the Publisher:

An astonishing first novel set in a world where 99 per cent of the population are werewolves.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 022407864X
• ISBN 13: 9780224078641
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384