Book Review: The City that Barks and Roars, J.T. Bird
Fantasy/Mystery: The City that Barks and Roars, J.T. Bird
Blog Tour November 11, 2020
How do you describe a book that is unlike almost anything else you’ve ever read? In using animals to tell a typically human story it is like George Orwell’s Animal Farm–except it is nothing like George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Watership Down? Zootopia? The Jungle Book? Yes. And no. Chronicles of Narnia? Closer…but not really. One reviewer called it “animal noir.” Since I can’t come up with anything nearly as good, I’m going to go with that.
Detective Lucas Panda is missing. Kidnapped. Gone with very few clues left behind. His partner, Detective Frank Penguin, will stop at nothing to find him. Detective Chico Monkey comes to Noah’s Kingdom to assist in the investigation. And off we go in a detective story that walks on the wild side.
Author J.T. Bird (no, I’m not kidding) doesn’t spend much time building his world. He just drops the readers right into it. A panda and a penguin are partners on the police force. Other detectives include a wolf, a rat, and a polar bear. Most of the police force is made up of…pigs. Yes, the author is not afraid to go there. (Perhaps now is the time to mention that the actual ruler of the place is a lioness.) A vulture is the police captain. And the local dam was built by and is maintained by, wait for it, beavers!
Considering that the author is also a stand-up comedian, perhaps it is not really a surprise that the book has a lot of humor built in to it.
Through the veneer of animals walking and talking and not a human to be seen, Bird manages to give his readers an interesting mystery. The occasional whimsical line drawings of animals in fedoras and other clothing adds to the fun. This is a delightful book that is written for adults who have not forgotten their childhoods. Never too dark nor too whimsical, this is a book that allows us all to be Dr. Dolittle without having to “learn their languages.”
Our thanks to Emma Welton from Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for our copy of this book, given solely for our participation in this tour. Check out the other bloggers in the tour for more perspectives on The City that Barks and Roars. The opinions here are solely those of Scintilla.
Book Review: The City that Barks and Roars, J.T. Bird
Thanks for being a part of the blog tour 🙂
Thank you for such a lovely review. Even I don’t know how best to describe my book in all fairness!! 😀