Werewolf Cop: A Novel

This was a well written book but the subject failed to engage me. This reflects personal preferences and should not be taken to impugn the book. I am just not into the supernatural, sci-fy or horror genres.

This is a thriller that breaks all the boundaries. It's not just a simple police procedural. Nor is it just a horror novel. Nor is it only a penetrating gaze into the darkness within each of us. It's all of these things, and, amazingly, Klavan makes it work brilliantly.

It starts off at a breakneck speed, with two famous police detectives inspecting a slaughter house - the bloody bodies of five people strewn across a room. A drug deal gone bad? One small child was left alive, hidden behind a secret panel that concealed a vast stash of money. The terrified little boy didn't see what took place, but he recalls the killers saying a mysterious two words.

Zach, a police detective, sets out to discover the meaning of the words, and it's like pulling at a thread until it unravels the sweater. He's soon off to Germany, and hot on the trail of Stumpf's Baselard, a dagger from the 15th century that's been missing since that era.

This is a fun page turner. Highly recommended.

I admire Andrew Klavan. I share much of his world view, liked his memoir, and have found real wisdom in his articles and podcasts. Shocked therefore I was by this attrocious novel. I cringed early on in the endeavor, and didn't stop cringing until the relief of the last page. Detestable characters, corny intimacy, uncessing repetition, and disgustingly descriptive episodes of blood, gore, and giant cockroaches, draped ill-fittingly over a serious idea. Might work as a graphic novel.

The always-excellent Andrew Klavan spins a new yarn reminiscent of his earlier work, classics such as The Animal Hour, The Scarred Man, and Don't Say A Word, page-turning novels of gut-wrenching suspense, with psychological plot twists that seem to come out of nowhere, brutal, violent realism, and third-act, wide-eyed resolution that make his books nearly impossible to put down.

Horror fans, especially fans of classic horror, will be especially riveted by the saga of detective Zach Adams, as he fights police corruption and politics as well as a sinister European villain, Dominic Abend, while struggling to understand and control a new, more horrifying change in his life. Klavan's signature style of thrusting a morally complicated but innocent character into a brutal world of violence and sex, causing him to question his beliefs and his soul, then completely turning the tables on him and cranking up the trauma until he's propelled into a nightmare beyond his control keeps us guessing page after page. Following the tragic Zach's spiraling life, I can't help but be reminded of Nancy Kinkaid, the protagonist of Klavan's 1993 masterpiece, "The Animal Hour," who is similarly placed onto a gruesome stage without knowing how she got there, why she was put there, or how she was going to get out.

Probably the best author of psychological horror on the market, Klavan delivers on all cylinders for the first time in years. Lately concentrating on the young adult and mystery market, "Werewolf Cop" reminds me of what made his classic novels great...spine-tingling suspense worthy of Hitchcock (in places he really brings on the "ewww" factor), placing his hero in nearly-impossible situations, and keeping the pace lively. Klavan's ability to write dialogue borders on genius, and his sense of humor keeps an increasingly dark novel from becoming hopelessly dim. The characters are realistic and interesting, the action is vigorous, and the twists are so stunning at times that you're forced to read the book a second time in order to understand just how brilliantly you were set up.

Another classic from the master of psychological terror...I hope to see more of Zach Adams.

A solid urban fantasy with a nice spiritual component. The scenes with the massive arthropods were a bit too much for me, but other than that, there was a really strong blend of moral horror and the horror of what people do to each other.

Wolfcop is a horrible, over-the-top movie about a cop turned werewolf available on netflix. Andrew Klavan, winner of mystery’s Edgar Award, decides to tell that tale in a very different way. Zach Adams is a super cop working for a federal agency hot on the trail of Dominic Abend, a European criminal come to America and killing everyone who gets in his way to reclaim a dagger made in the middle ages, that theoretically killed the first werewolf. Of course he is bitten and turned Werewolf in Germany where he goes researching the dagger. Werewolf Cop (hard from Pegasus) is a dark and twisted as the HBO series True Detective. Fun.Review printed by Philadelphia Weekly Press

I'm a fan of fantasy detective and police stories, but I prefer mysteries and police procedurals and this is an adventure-thriller. The action is well-written and the ending has a nice twist, but the characters are one-dimensional stereotypes and, come on, a supernatural Nazi with a magic dagger running an organized crime group that uses swords and is trying to take over the world? How many cliches of the genre can we get into one book here? Fortunately the public library is free, so I can buy only the really good books that I want to keep. This is not one of them.