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The Things We Do by Kay Pfaltz (view source)
Revision as of 11:25, 23 September 2019
, 11:25, 23 September 2019no edit summary
Whilst this would make a very good basis for a book in itself, Kay Pfaltz has taken as the core of her story something very different and altogether more worrying. A policeman, Nick Dracas, has been driving around animal shelters offering to 'adopt' dogs which have been there for a long time, which are likely to be euthanized. Only the dogs were not going to a good home - they were being sold to a laboratory which tests products on animals. One shelter had its suspicions about Dracas and in 2014 asked an animal activist, Sylvie Marshall to go undercover at a local laboratory to gather evidence. They gave her a false identity.
If you're planning on reading this book - and I really think you should - you need to know that this isn't as an easy read. I was in tears on several occasions and I suspect that it's not only someone who is as notoriously soft-hearted about dogs as I am who would be similarly affected. I am ashamed about what we do to animals in the name of science, with seemingly little benefit to the human race. I've now taken to checking what I buy ''very'' carefully.
This makes the book sound rather worthy and it's a great deal better than that. There's a damned good story here, peopled with characters who stay in your mind, from the prisoners in the penitentiary through to the animals imprisoned in the laboratory. The plotting is exceptional: it's only when you've turned the final page that you realise quite how carefully it's been constructed, how one set of circumstances highlights another, how it all knits together. If I had to be very picky, I would say that the book would have been better if the ending had been different, but I'm also grateful that it wasn't. I'll leave you to work that one out for yourself!