Book Review: The Last Dog on Earth by Adrian J. Walker

What the publisher says: “Every dog has its day…

And for Lineker, a happy go lucky mongrel from Peckham, the day the world ends is his: finally a chance to prove to his owner just how loyal he can be.

Reg, an agoraphobic writer with an obsession for nineties football, plans to wait out the impending doom in his second floor flat, hiding himself away from the riots outside.

But when an abandoned orphan shows up in the stairwell of their building, Reg and Lineker must brave the outside in order to save not only the child, but themselves…”

What I say: As a lover of post-apocalyptic books, I very much enjoyed this novel. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic London, where Reg, a writer, lives with his dog. He knows there are other people in flats further away (he keeps track of them; there are ten window spread out over the city that lit up every night) but he is not interested in meeting anyone else. He likes to keep to himself. But then he finds a young girl at his door, who refuses to go away. Reg decides to bring her to wherever she’s supposed to be and, once he gets outside the familiar streets, finds the remnants of London to be very different from what he expected. He is forced to deal with other people and his quest to drop the girl off turns into something bigger.

Besides Reg, there is another narrator, who is at Reg’s side for most of the time but also has his own adventures. This is Reg’s dog Lineker. He’s very wise for a dog and he philosophizes like a real human. I loved how he interprets the smells that he comes across; these are much more important to him than sound or vision. However, while he was generally telling an entertaining story, as the story progressed, I found him less believable as a dog. He knew too much; he was too clever.

In all, this was an entertaining story about a man and his dog in a world where there are many more men and dogs than either of them knew.

I received this book as an e-book (ARC) from the publishers (Del Rey) via Netgalley.