Rowf, a shaggy black mongrel, and Snitter, a black-and-white fox terrier, are among dozens of animals being cruelly held in a testing facility in North West England. When one of the handlers fails to close Rowf's cage properly, the two dogs make a daring escape into the English countryside, where they befriend a red fox who helps them survive in the wild.
But as rumors circulate that the dogs may have been the test subjects for biological weapons and could be carrying a terrible plague, they soon find themselves targets of a great dog hunt. Local farmers, politicians, scientists, and even the military join in the search to track them down.
"Adams takes us to places where no author author has taken us." --The Washington Post
"Engrossing. . . . Bears the abundant mark of sheer genius." --The Plain Dealer
"Better and more powerful than Watership Down." --Providence Journal
"Marvelous. . . . An excellent drama." --Newsweek
"Excellent." --New York Daily News
"Adams writes brilliantly about animals. . . . When these dogs are on the move, they compel us to follow, trotting along the narrative path on all the legs we have." --Saturday Review
"The genuine and moving feeling for animals that dominated Watership Down emerges here in intense dramatic form. Adams engenders such compassion, such desperate, urgent sympathy for 'the plague dogs, ' that the reader yearns for a happy ending." --Publishers Weekly