Dr. Max
Marilyn Dungan & Max Harding
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2005 Arcane Books
ISBN: 0966647890

Adventures of a Kentucky Vet.

Max Harding, D.V.M, M.F.S., started out with an iguana, an exotic critter for a little boy in a big city, which promptly died from lack of knowledgeable care. Then his Dad, yearning for the joys of his childhood, relocated to a farm in Kentucky, dragging his city wife & kids behind him.

By the time he made high school, Max Harding had the privileged job, during vacations, of assisting at the Howard and Tucker Veterinary Clinic in Paris, Kentucky. There he came under the wise & feisty influence of Dr. Howard. & life got interesting.

Freshly married & slogging his impoverished way through college, all he can think of is graduating & going into business on his own with large animals -- steer, horses, pigs, even bison, llamas, ostriches. & when he does, ah, the stories he has to tell especially about castration, birthing & all sorts of bovine ailments -- it gets so I wonder how any of them ever survived without us humans.

With chapter titles like:
In Pursuit
Bad Breath
On My Own
My Man, Charlie
Hell Week
Instincts
Vet Tech
Deadly Force
Another Close One
Forensics
Bolivia & many more -- each stories brings to life both the patients & their caretakers, some of this vet's philosophies & medical remedies plus the hazards & hilarity that is peculiar to this calling.

I was not at all sure Dr. Max would be my cup of tea -- I'm not an “animal” kinda gal -- however, once I'd started, Dr. Max's voice (& Marilyn Dungan's smooth & unadorned writing) simply engrossed me. I just kept turning the pages & wincing at all the “gloved hands into orifices” tales, thrilled by this vet's adventures, & the fragments he offers of his domestic life.

Give this book to your vet & to anyone who loves & cares for animals. It will make your hair stand on end, & tickle your funny bone.

Very well done, Dr. Max & Ms. Dungan!

Marilyn Dungan is better known for her mystery thrillers although she also turned to historical fiction for her dramatic & “politically uncorrect” A River Away. Her other books are:
Snakebird
The Tape
Field of Stones
Accidental Intent
(06/04/06)

Rebecca