cover image Dog Eat Dog

Dog Eat Dog

Jerry Jay Carroll, Carroll. Ace Books, $12 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-441-00597-0

Carroll's Top Dog (1996), which followed a ruthless Wall Street takeover artist who suddenly turns into a dog and is involved in a cosmic battle between God and Satan, was an endearing and unlikely success. This followup is equally fine, an entertaining hybrid of fantasy, thriller and moral tale. William ""Bogey"" Ingersoll, out of jail after serving time on a bum swindling rap, is no longer the swaggering bully of Top Dog. Back on two legs, he's a changed man--giving away his vast fortune to needy causes, taking in so many stray pooches that the dogcatcher makes daily visits to his Northern California estate. Some of Bogey's canine talents survive: he can talk to his pets and his sense of smell is hyperactive. But he's given up roast beef (""when you have to chase down prey, rip out its throat, and snatch a few mouthfuls of hot flesh before some more powerful carnivore shows up, believe me, you lose your taste for meat""). And lately he's been having this recurring dream, where he's chased by Pig Faces--the nasty, foul-smelling agents of the Devil. As a lovely Stanford psychiatrist tries to ease Bogey's nocturnal anxieties and the cops work to nail him for some Pig Face crimes, the former canine is busy derailing another ruthless financier who wants to take over the White House. Even Kafka might have chuckled at this sly dog's story. (Feb.)