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