Bareback - Softcover

Whitfield, Kit

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0224080385 ISBN 13: 9780224080385

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 2006

Synopsis

Biology is destiny. or 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. S

About this title

Review:

"Bareback is neither [quite] horror nor supernatural fantasy, but more a cautionary tale which echoes The Handmaid's Tale or Nineteen Eighty Four...Her story resonates with real issues of power, responsibility and blame" (Lisa Tuttle The Times)

"A gutsy debut...it's hard not to cheer on Whitfield's nerve, especially when her plot, a hard-boiled thriller... rattles along at such a pace" (Hepzibah Anderson Observer)

"Gritty and original" (Guardian)

"Extraordinary" (Kate Atkinson)

"An intelligent book and a moving one" (Time Out)

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: 0224080385
• ISBN 13: 9780224080385
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384