Book Review: The Wolf’s Hour by Robert McCammon

Recently, I stumbled across someone asking if this book was worth their time, and I felt compelled to give my answer in long form as well as short form. The short answer is yes. Abso-fucking-lutely.

If you’re not into the whole brevity thing, the answer is still yes, with several ‘becauses’ attached. If you are the type of silly person who reads the synopsis first (don’t worry, I fall for it too), this book will sound over-the-top and potentially hokey. It’s a spy during WW2 who is also a werewolf. I remember picking this book up and thinking okay, should be entertaining, but how good could it be?

I’ve learned since to always trust McCammon. This is, in my oh so humble opinion, one of the top two entries in the horror sub-genre of werewolf lit. FYI, the other is Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, and the two are not particularly comparable.

What I like best is the number of novels you get crammed into about 600 pages. The story belonging to the main character, Michael Gallatin, could be classified as a coming-of-age story with a werewolf bent. Typical tropes in that genre are sometimes reworked to fit coming of age in a very different type of society, sometimes subverted altogether. The main part of the story we follow is a better James Bond book than a lot of James Bond books. This coming from a reader who has been through all of Ian Fleming’s Bond works. There are also the monster horror elements that McCammon does so well in other stories. Vicious, gruesome, and unrelenting. Surprisingly, an element of beauty and the beast type horror even makes an appearance. Let’s say the trope, not the 1991 animated classic or the 2017 soon to be forgotten remake.

If you’re not sold on dropping $7.99 for the kindle version for all that, dear God, you still haven’t heard the best part. There is a sequence nearer the end with a murder train. This is Saw meets The Most Dangerous Game and it’s somehow clever at the same time.

We’ve got an author here whose other works are sometimes eclipsed by Swan Song and Boys Life, which are incredible works, but by no means all McCammon has to offer. Do yourself a favor and make sure that Wolf’s Hour crawls from the depths of 1989 to your reading pile.

Review by Brennan LaFaro

Twitter: @whathappensnex5

Blog: http://brennanlafaro.wordpress.com