The Pack
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
'Floris is all that keeps Victor in the human world, the only tenderness he allows in his heart. He will do all he can to find her and, if he doesn't, yes, he will die as a dog . . .'
Bradley, Victor and Floris live with the dogs on the dark, forgotten edge of a segregated city. Haunted by memories and abandoned by society, they have learned to survive on their own. But when Floris is kidnapped the others must venture into the unknown to save their friend. It is a journey fraught with danger - violent gangs stalk the streets, and corrupt warlords viciously guard their territories. But it is also a journey of discovery . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Scottish author Pow's (Scabbit Isle) first novel to be published in the U.S., three children live with wild dogs in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity itself seems on the verge of going feral. Bradley, Floris and Victor live in the squalid Zones that sit in the shadow of the Invisible City ("while in the Zones the city seemed to be dying rusting, putrefying, belching steam from broken vents the Invisible City was constantly changing: new shops, coffee bars, businesses") with their companion dogs Hunger, Shelter and Fearless. The mysterious Old Woman tells them cryptic stories of the "Dead Time" that brought about the world's ruin. When bandits kidnap Floris, Victor whose human nature is slowly reverting to animal ways pursues her into the Forbidden Territories that separate the City from the Zones, with Bradley and Hunger close behind. A ruthless gang led by Red Dog kidnaps Bradley and forces Hunger to take part in a dog-fighting competition, described in a long, disquieting sequence. An escape leads to the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the City: children are held as slaves because their small hands are adept at building electronic devices and security systems. The plot takes a while to unfold and includes an overabundance of allegorical messages (the moral stain of sweatshops, the perils of urban life, the ease with which men revert to their animal instincts), but the finale is extremely effective. Ages 12-up.
