THE word initiation has a deceptive innocence about it, bastardisation none. Mark Taylor's Dogs Are Barking (Irrepressible Press, pp205, $15.95) strips bare the malice and brutality within military college culture, and exposes the barbaric group dynamics behind ensuring adherence to it. That it has been tacitly condoned and covered up by higher ranks is even more shameful. (This year's A Current Affairs expose is not new - the press has been reporting such incidents since 1913, albeit bowdlerised as "recruiting" or "hazing".) A retired army officer, Taylor begins his novel at full tilt and then accelerates. His writing is workmanlike, his story relentless as it unwinds with inevitable consequences. Not Pulitzer Prize material but passionate and readable, and a clarion call for change. Source: http://users.tpg.com.au/waldrenm/other.html#bk39