Sharp Teeth (English)

Toby Barlow's clever, sexy, Los Angeles noir has not one, but two twists: there are werewolves in it, and it's written in verse. Still despite the hybrid gimmickry, SHARP TEETH offers up all the pleasures of both hardboiled crime and the contemporary supernatural. The book's hero, Anthony, is a no-nonsense dogcatcher who finds himself caught between rival gangs of werewolves (called only "lycanthropes" here) and romantically involved with a dangerous femme fatale. Barlow's tale also functions as an edgy satire of modern America. Dog culture has always helped define the social classes at war in the city (pitbulls for the gangbangers, lapdogs for the glitterati), but Barlow takes it all a step further by literally transforming humans into their pets. minimize