I always see this book in horror book posts on Instagram. When I bought it that’s what I assumed it was also, like Jaws but a giant killer wolf loose in New York. Twas not. What we have here is Deathwish for wolves. Hell, they even mention Deathwish in the book.
The main character’s name is Dane. Cheese city. We get a lil’ back story of him as a nature loving child who always slept outdoors. It seems to me, it’s not just a love of nature but Dane may have some mental issues.
As a young adult he disappears into the woods for months at a time. He comes back one time and his parents have died and left him a bunch of money. He is befriended by an old hunter with a cabin in the woods and the parks department director. Everything is hunky dory for a while. Then some land developers start buying up property. They start killing the deer in large amounts. Dane isn’t happy about any of this. Almost all the deer have disappeared. He investigates it and finds a secret mass grave of deer all killed by his two friends under contract from the land developers. He cannot abide this transgression and kills them. Hell yeah, Dane. He then empties his bank account and heads for Canada.
In Canada he lives deep in the mountains, writing a journal and basically waiting to die. There is one thing he lives for though and that’s his buddies, the wolves. They have adopted him as part of their pack and hang around and do wolf stuff together. Bad news for them though because…
Psycho ex-military ultra hunter, Van Owen, is leading an expedition of very unlikeable successful New York business men on a hunting trip through the mountains. Like any piece of shit who wants to go out into nature and kill an animal, they want the biggest one they can find. A bear is mentioned but ultimately it is decided that a pack of wolves will be equally fun. Also, legend has it, there is a wild man who lives among them, and Van Owen hopes to be able to kill him also. You know, for fun.
They charter a helicopter. Find the wolves. Shoot them from the helicopter. Kill all but Dane and the giant black wolf pack leader who narrowly escape. The hunters celebrate because shooting wolves from a helicopter is something to be proud of. Author really goes all in in making these guys killable. They are all pretty shitty and you know it’s going to be revenge city.
A year later and somewhere else in Canada a young lady is sneaking away from her abusive home. On the road she happens upon Dane while avoiding her mom’s boyfriend. Dane is travelling across the country in an old van with his wolf friend. She sneaks into the van; everyone is fine with the situation and off they go.
From then on, it’s revenge time. Dane and his wolf pop into New York City to exterminate the hunters. It’s a lot of fun. You can kill all hunters as far as I’m concerned. There is some inner Dane turmoil and some weird relationship drama with Dane and the girl that could have been left out but it’s minimal. There’s also some perspective from minor characters; the police investigator, the city wildlife dept guy, the hunted. Most of it is remorseless revenge. The kills are throat ripped out gore. What it ends up being is two serial killers, Dane and Van Owen, going head-to-head in a hunter battle royale. It’s kind of a ridiculous plot but it’s almost believable. It’s not Jaws 4 or anything.
Pocket Books 1987
Review by Nick Anderson
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