Steve-Calvert.co.uk
Steve-Calvert.co.uk
A Passion For Horror
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Nick Lupo is a good cop with an unusual secret. Nick is a werewolf and even after many years he is still trying to come to terms with that fact and learn how to control the animal within him. Nick may be a werewolf, but he is on top of his strange situation enough to be of danger to no one. Most of the blood and guts of this story are supplied by a serial killer. Nick doesn't know it but the killer that he is hunting is also hunting him. What Nick does quickly come to realize, though, is the fact that the killer might very be the one person in the world who does know his secret, and so Nick not only needs to figure out who the killer is, but how they know so much about him. As far as serial killers go the one in this book is a little different. He has unusual tastes and has an unhealthy obsession with lipstick. He's a strange guy and that's all that I'm prepared to give away. He is a dangerous guy as well though and is working to a plan. When Nick and his partner Ben are brought in to investigate the death of a young prostitute, found mutilated in a public toilet, Nick discovers that the victim was none other than his friend and neighbour, Corinne Devereaux. This is a terrible shock for the young detective because although he and Corinne were just good friends he cared about her deeply, perhaps more than he ever realized, but it's too late now, the killer has used his knife to close off that particular avenue of thought forever. On a whim, Nick opens what he thinks might be the door to a Janitor's storage closet and it leads him down a mall service tunnel. There is a message on the wall and it is written in his friend's blood: HERE'S ONE FOR YOU, NICK! The other cops, with the possible exception of Ben, put this down to the work of Satanists. "Nick's another name for Satan - you know, Nick Scratch," a forensics tech tells him. "Yeah," Nick says, but he knows better. I have not read a lot of werewolf novels. In fact, I think that Wolf's Trap is only the second one. Because of this I cannot say how Wolf's Trap does or does not compare to other similar works, but I can say that I enjoyed it. Because I did. It is a well crafted and interesting story where there is a lot happening. The main story concerns, of course, Nick's hunt for the killer. But there is also the story of what happened to Nick to make him what he is, along with his ongoing work to exercise some kind of control over his change and over the beast within. The book also contains the killer's story and little of what, perhaps, contributed to the way that he is. Then there is a little bit of romance, because not all of Nick's need are animal and, like anyone else, he needs love, but with a killer on his tail (figuratively speaking) he might just be a dangerous person to be around at the moment. Wolf's
Trap is 373 pages long and I
think that the best way for me to describe it would be to say that it
is crime story where the main character just happens to be a wolf in
cops clothing. It is a book, though, that I feel a lot of readers might
enjoy and not just horror fans. If you are a horror fan, however I
should point out that book was a finalist for the 2003 Bram
Stoker award, which should, I
think, say it all. |
