The Werewolves of Seattle...

American Werewolves - Emily Jane

One of my household’s favorite television programs of this century has been the six seasons of NBC’s “Grimm.” I think we’re now on our fourth – or maybe it’s our fifth – cycle through the entire series. Not familiar with the show’s premise? Simple: there are people who look just like everyone else who can change into humanized versions of animals: sheep, wolves, foxes, pigs, beavers, rats, even bees. These people can be either benign or evil; although most of the predator types are evil.

Which brings us to American Werewolves, the latest from novelist Emily Jane (On Earth, as It Is on Television). Jane’s titular werewolf pack are all male partners at a Seattle venture capitalist firm (therefore rapacious and evil by definition?). Once their newest partner, insta-obsessed closeted gay Shane LaSalle, is turned at a full-moon partner’s retreat; he realizes that this isn’t what he wanted out of life. Enter Natasha and Nova Z’Rhae (a fictional version of Taylor Swift, complete with glitter-covered Nozees). The three, helped by a “good” werewolf, are determined to euthanize the pack. Hilarity (some) and gore (lots) ensue.

Jane’s version of werewolves says a lot about her: they’re so evil that they immediately kill any female child born with the werewolf gene/virus/whatever. This is in addition to manipulating the levers of power to their kind’s advantage at every level: CEOs like Zuckerberg and Bezos, as well as officials like Cheney and Rumsfeld are all members of their own packs (although Elon Musk is said to be a vampire). As a result, Jane’s entire novel is overlain by a coat of misandry: only the males are greedy, bloodthirsty murderers.

The book’s not a terribly easy read, being somewhat longer than the subject matter probably deserves. It would also benefit from the omission of included “reference material” and a lighter touch on the man-hating stuff. Still and all, it’s a fairly fun read – although this this the only werewolf literature I’ve read (admittedly a small sample) that suggests that lycanthropy can be transmitted by a bite like vampirism. Maybe the Twilight series says so, I wouldn’t know. All told, I’d give it a middling three stars.

Parker's Newest Protagonists: Keeping Secrets, Finding Killers

 Wild Instinct - T. Jefferson Parker

I’ve been reading T. Jefferson Parker since the days of Little Saigon and Laguna Heat, so yes – four decades now. And although I’ve never been in California’s Orange County, I sometimes feel as if I know its landscape and people from Jeff’s descriptions – the wild Pacific coast, the tumultuous border with Mexico, the deeply-ingrained Latinx culture. His latest, Wild Instinct, introduced me to a new aspect of the region; its Native heritage. For that, I thank him.

Wild Instinct, like about half Parker’s works, is a police procedural: when the tale opens, OCSD detective Lew Gale (né Luis Gallego) is on the hunt for a mountain lion presumed to have killed local real-estate developer Bennet Tarlow III. But when the ME finds a bullet in Tarlow’s brain, the hunt turns into a murder investigation. Paired with newly-minted homicide detective Daniela Mendez, Gale burrows into the workings of OC’s richest family, three generations of Tarlows, and Bennet III’s biggest project: a five square-mile city he would call Wildcoast. The usual suspects abound: local NIMBYs, the small but vocal indigenous communities, and all those politicians with their hands outstretched.

As is frequently the case in a Parker mystery, there is also a smidgen of the supernatural nibbling at the edges… and all the while, both Gale and Mendez have their own dark secrets to keep. None of that will prevent the two from the hunt.

All that being said, of Parker’s twenty-odd (I think this one makes thirty) novels, Wild Instinct isn’t quite the equal of the Charlie Hood series or, my favorites, the four books featuring Roland Ford. Perhaps it’s the Gale’s and Mendez’s dirty little secrets; perhaps it’s the highly unlikely details of the killer’s motivation (not the reason itself, the physical details). I suspect, however, that Gale and Melendez will be back; and I fully intend to give them a second read.

My thanks to the publisher for access to a galley proof of Wild Instinct in return for my honest review.

copyright © 2025 scmrak

Second Verse, Same as the First: Adam Kinzinger, Renegade

Renegade - Adam Kinzinger

Way back in 2005, Christine Todd Whitman (once the moderate Republican governor of New Jersey and Bush II’s first head of the EPA) wrote the book It’s My Party, Too.  No, it wasn’t a shout-out to Lesley Gore; it was Whitman bemoaning the cooptation of the Republican party by its “social fundamentalist wing.” The more things change, the more they stay the same: in 2023, Whitman’s complaint is echoed by none other than Adam Kinzinger, retired Republican Representative from Illinois who is reviled by the modern version of that wing, MAGA Trumpists, for having the temerity to vote to impeach their… their… whatever he is: god, oracle, führer...  

In case you’ve been asleep for the past two-plus years, Kinzinger (along with Wyoming's Liz Cheney) was one of two Republicans who served on the House committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021. He’s a small-town boy from Bloomington, Illinois; a decorated veteran who served in Iraq as an Air Force pilot; and a six-term congressman from his home state. His background is that of a life-long conservative with a fundamentalist Christian upbringing. And, like Whitman before him, Kinzinger is aghast at the cult of personality that has taken over the party to which he has devoted the past thirty years of his life.

The Brothers K: The Best Novel You've Never Read

The Brothers K - David James Duncan

Author's note: republished to celebrate the 2023 release of David James Duncan's first novel in more than two decades, Sun House.

 

It's a fairy tale. It has no sleeping princess, no handsome prince, no troll under a bridge, no voracious and avaricious giant. Or perhaps it does. It's a story of the Chance family - a father, a mother, four sons and two daughters - and how they all grew up (even the parents) during the turbulent 60s. It's a story of the strength of love; a fable about the force of faith; a parable of the power of one's dreams. But most of all, it's a saga of the strength of the ties that bind a family. And, yes, it is a story about baseball.

Would You Turn Your Back on this Librarian?

How Can I Help You - Laura Sims

Call me old-fashioned if you like, but the style of entertainment that includes television shows like “Dexter” and “Breaking Bad,” content built around deeply flawed protagonists, just leaves me cold. In the same vein, I’m perfectly happy to say that if I don’t like the characters in a book, it’s a pretty safe bet I won’t like the book. That’s the reason Laura Sims’ How Can I Help You just didn’t click with me at first: I wouldn’t turn my back on either of the protagonists.