HIGHLY INTELLIGENT ANIMAL LORE AND CANNY MORALISING The Countryman
Vets in Congress is the fourth in this entertaining series of books based on the exploits of a vet who was practising in London and the Home Counties from the 1950s.
Vet Michael Morton and his strikingly attractive wife Julia (introduced in It's A Vet's Life and herself a natural with animals, snakes especially) are looking forward to a rare moment alone, as their two boys have been whisked off for a holiday to the Scottish Highlands. But when they look in at a veterinary conference in London and become involved with a family of Arabs and their menagerie of animals, matters take a surprise turn.
Ten years on from Book 3 (Vets in the Belfry), this is London in the summer of 1976, the hottest since records began and the moment when, you may remember, it was so hot that there was a plague of ladybirds on the city's pavements. Insects play a leading role in Vets in Congress, but so do alligators, monkeys and king snakes. For this is also the time when exotic pets are a must-have fashion accessory for the very rich, in particular Arabs at the height of the West's dependence on Saudi oil.
Soon, however, and with characteristic inevitability, Vets in Congress brings us back to the rural home of Morton's earliest adventures, the quintessentially English village of Craftley in Surrey, where the world's problems find their own special resonance, and - as ever - Michael keeps the community spinning on an even axis through his good humour and down-to-earth integrity.
SOME REVIEWS OF ALEX DUNCAN'S CLASSIC TALES -
The fast and furious pace never conceals a hard core of veterinary experience THE COUNTRYMAN
Lots of laughs and lots of fascinating animal revelations (and a few human ones too) SHE MAGAZINE
The author will have you in stitches SUNDAY PICTORIAL
Like its predecessors - or even more so - very funny indeed THE CATHOLIC HERALD
[Alex Duncan] ... A sort of P G Wodehouse with the eyes of a Samuel Pepys ... a discovery indeed BOOKMAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Duncan is the pseudonym for a prolific writer, whom the New York Times described as 'one of the really great comedy writers of England'. Readers of Jo Hardy, James Herriot, Cathy Woodman and Marc Abraham will warm to Alex Duncan.
Genre: General Fiction
Vets in Congress is the fourth in this entertaining series of books based on the exploits of a vet who was practising in London and the Home Counties from the 1950s.
Vet Michael Morton and his strikingly attractive wife Julia (introduced in It's A Vet's Life and herself a natural with animals, snakes especially) are looking forward to a rare moment alone, as their two boys have been whisked off for a holiday to the Scottish Highlands. But when they look in at a veterinary conference in London and become involved with a family of Arabs and their menagerie of animals, matters take a surprise turn.
Ten years on from Book 3 (Vets in the Belfry), this is London in the summer of 1976, the hottest since records began and the moment when, you may remember, it was so hot that there was a plague of ladybirds on the city's pavements. Insects play a leading role in Vets in Congress, but so do alligators, monkeys and king snakes. For this is also the time when exotic pets are a must-have fashion accessory for the very rich, in particular Arabs at the height of the West's dependence on Saudi oil.
Soon, however, and with characteristic inevitability, Vets in Congress brings us back to the rural home of Morton's earliest adventures, the quintessentially English village of Craftley in Surrey, where the world's problems find their own special resonance, and - as ever - Michael keeps the community spinning on an even axis through his good humour and down-to-earth integrity.
SOME REVIEWS OF ALEX DUNCAN'S CLASSIC TALES -
The fast and furious pace never conceals a hard core of veterinary experience THE COUNTRYMAN
Lots of laughs and lots of fascinating animal revelations (and a few human ones too) SHE MAGAZINE
The author will have you in stitches SUNDAY PICTORIAL
Like its predecessors - or even more so - very funny indeed THE CATHOLIC HERALD
[Alex Duncan] ... A sort of P G Wodehouse with the eyes of a Samuel Pepys ... a discovery indeed BOOKMAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Duncan is the pseudonym for a prolific writer, whom the New York Times described as 'one of the really great comedy writers of England'. Readers of Jo Hardy, James Herriot, Cathy Woodman and Marc Abraham will warm to Alex Duncan.
Genre: General Fiction
Used availability for Alex Duncan's Vets in Congress