Pets Aplenty – Book Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Pets Aplenty
by Malcolm D. Welshman
Published by Austin Macauley Publishers
310 pages Paperback
ISBN: 9781849639965
Price: £7.99

Join novice vet, Paul Mitchell, in a further six months of hilarious escapades he experiences while working at Prospect House Veterinary Hospital. He's confronted by a ravenous pig while sunbathing naked in a cornfield. He locks jaws with a caiman with scale rot and battles with Doug, a vicious miniature donkey that's always sinking his teeth into him. It ends with a Christmas pet blessing which erupts into pandemonium as frightened pets and owners scatter through the pews. Throughout his adventures, Paul is loyally supported by the team at the hospital - in particular Beryl, the elderly one-eyed receptionist, and, Lucy the junior nurse - together with whom he shares this merry-go-round of mayhem. It's a gripping, fast page-turner that's guaranteed to keep animal lovers entranced.

The author has an uncanny ability to paint human as well as animal characters in his books and this will enable anyone with a little imagination to actually visualize the people and animals he is writing about.

Pets Aplenty should carry a health warning such as “You could die laughing”. For me it was already in the first chapter and it was the hens that did it. Being a keeper of hens – well keeper is really not the right word with hens – I know just what they can be like.

However, this is but one chapter. The reader will be laughing all the way through and let me issue another serious warning; do not read this book on public transport of any kind unless you don't mind laughing out real loud and long on a bus or train and have people question your sanity.

I laughed a great deal with the first book that I reviewed by this author, namely “Pets in a Pickle” but this one has topped it. The problem is that I love puns and there are puns aplenty, as much, if not more, than pets aplenty in this book that will make you fall about laughing.

Any animal lover will adore this book, of that I am certain.

Malcolm Welshman is a retired vet who was a consultant dealing with exotics. He has written for The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail and magazines such as The Lady. He was the My Weekly vet for fifteen years. He is a BBC Radio panelist and a guest speaker worldwide on cruise ships.

© 2014