The Dog Who Came In From The Cold is a Corduroy Mansions novel by Alexander McCall Smith. Yesterday I completed listening to the final chapter, number 78 - at least I think it was the last chapter.
To be quite honest I'm not sure I really know what the novel was about. I'm a bit stuck to string more than a few words together about it. It had an air of having been written on the fly, and for me some of the story lines feel a bit unfinished - or did I just miss them being rounded off? Sometimes I think it was just AMS exploring an idea or having a small pontificate.
I don't think Alexander McCall Smith could really count it as one of his great successes. I certainly didn't engage with it in the way I can see The Telegraph hoped I would. I didn't join the FaceBook club, or follow Freddie de lay Hay on Twitter, or ask questions in the forum. Oh yes, I kept going back, listening to the next chapter, then the next, but I have only a hazy idea of how they all meshed together. If you have the time and inclination, you might like to start listening to them.
If I had a suggestion, perhaps next time the producers could consider making it possible for me to listen to Andrew Sachs reading the text while my eyes follow along. Each chapter is about 7 -8 minutes long, just long enough for my mind to wander and even lose track of the narration. Even Andrew Sachs can be a bit soporific at times. I think it would certainly help me remember events from one day to the next - bearing in mind that sometimes I listened to 3 or 4 chapters consecutively, and then often left it for a week - just long enough to develop great holes in my memory!
