Anthony Gardner won much acclaim for his previous novel ‘Fox’ – a farcical thriller concerning a virulent disease carried by foxes – and ‘All God’s Creatures’ balances a similar madcap sense of intrigue with added satirical laughs galore. The whole caper is set in motion by the death of Ben Fairweather’s golden retriever. Ben is the editor of Cathedral, a Christian magazine, which, after once hosting big hitters such as Graham Greene and Simone de Beauvoir, has fallen on hard times. But when Ben writes a eulogy for his dog – and posits that animals must surely go to heaven (“Can we conceive of a God who blesses us with the love of animals, only to separate us from them for eternity?”) – it goes viral. The piece is of particular interest to All God’s Creatures, a fanatical US movement who believe that theologians have paid too little attention to the role of animals in God’s plan. After some unholy skulduggery, All God’s Creatures manage to take over Cathedral, and it isn’t long before their ideology has spread through all strata of British life, right up to the Prime Minister whose advisors set about workshopping what sort of dog the PM would look best with. Also in the mix are a whole bunch of Russian spies and oligarchs, a criminal gang member on the lam, some art forgers, and the Archbishop of Canterbury who’s disturbed by the amount of animals people are now bringing to church (“There was even some kind of monkey…”). There are plenty of narrative plates to keep spinning here, but Gardner pulls it off with aplomb. RM

Published by Eye Books