The Last Dog On Earth

Our Review

Agoraphobic Reg and his dog Linekar live in a flat in Peckham. They have a daily routine they stick to and on the rare occasion they leave the flat they do so only within certain areas.

Linekar would do anything for his Reg and like most dogs he adores his master.

“There he fucking is in all his fucking glory. What a body. What a man. What a fucking god.”

This adoration and dedication clearly doesn’t go two ways. Reg is only concerned about self-preservation and what is happening in his world. Even when the riots were happening all over London he still barely noticed.

There are clues that suggest Reg wasn’t always alone and that some sort of trauma occurred to make him wary of human contact. For example, when he talks about people leaving London he says, Their absence should dismay me but, in fact, it is only the absence of one which does.

One day, Reg and Linekar are out whilst Reg is looking for spare parts for his failing generator. When they arrive back at the flat Reg is caught between the soldiers and a rogue gang of people known as The Purples. The soldiers were transporting a group of young children and one of them accidently gets left behind.

Aisha hides out in the stairwell and tries to get Reg to let her into his flat but Reg is too scared because he doesn’t want to have to protect her. He knows he isn’t hero material and says so in this extract below.

“I am not a hero. Altruism does not exist. There are the things a man wants to do and there are the things he must do must be done because if he does not then the consequences linger. That is really all there is to altruism: the avoidance of bad feeling.”

 Eventually Reg after some pretty reprehensible actions Reg realises he is going to have to help her although as the above extract shows the reasons why are still all about him.

The Last Dog On Earth was the second book I have read by Adrian Walker and whilst I loved The End Of The World Running Club I have only given this one 3.5 stars on my rating system.

There are three reasons why it has not achieved 5 stars. The first is that I found the chapters written from the perspective of Linekar were a bit disjointed and difficult to follow because they flitted from subject to subject. This was a minor concern though.

The second reason was that until Aisha was introduced I found the book a little slow to get started and I couldn’t relate to Reg before that.

The third reason was much more important for me and if it was the first book I had read by Adrian Walker then it would have been the end of me reading the book.This reason was the excessive use of the C word. I don’t mind a little bit of swearing in the right context but too much just makes me lose interest. However, because I loved The End Of The World Running Club I carried on reading.

In the end the saving grace of The Last Dog On Earth for me was the relationship between Aisha and Reg. It made me want to continue reading what turned out to be a thrilling book. 

Our Final Rating...

Fri, 15th September 2017