Wolf Moon by Ed Gorman

No Series
WESTERN

rating

It wasn't just the memories of his murdered brothers or the ten years in prison that reminded Chase how much he hated Reeves for double-crossing him after the bank robbery. Chase's face was carved with hideous scars from the bloody night when Reeve's killer wolf had attacked and left him for dead. Now he was out of jail and in the same town where Reeves was setting up his next bank heist. The lust for revenge was eating away at Chase's gut, and not even the love of a woman could stop him from the hell-bound path he must follow. For him, no price was too high -- and the sacrifice would be savage.

I guess that, outside of Lonesome Dove, I'm not going to end up being a big Western fan. I went into this one with high expectations based on the reviews of both the praised book and appreciated author, who died last year. By tribute, I picked one of his well-known books that sounded interesting to me. For some reason I always found the subject of rabies intriguing, but I found a lot of inaccuracies in this book regarding that.

It didn't help the beginning of the story started with two horrible injustices that were hard to stomach. The main character was betrayed and falsely imprisoned, which is a big pet peeve of mine. Even worse was the horrible scene with the family of wolves, which was hard to stomach for any animal lover. Beware of these vicious scenes tainting the book. It doesn't get any better for the poor wolf unfortunately. I was mad on his behalf all the way up to the end.

I couldn't get into the storyline much either. I understand the anger of the main character but it was loosely constructed in terms of a revenge plot. When there was something depressing happening to the main character, I still couldn't bond with him well. The writing held no punches back with tragedy - some of it was surprising in the end.

There's a storyline but it's slow going and not evenly paced. Combine a ho-hum main character with the opening and ending with the wolves, and it was a disappointment. Westerns are definitely brutal.