This is a third-person installment of single parent Tommy, his big brother, Burt, and his daughter Corin, the cutie-pie toddler (and kicking, scratching, biting, protective wolf-cub) who happens to be my favorite character. I also love the short-haired scribbler who has a particular sensitivity to other people’s thoughts. These flawed characters and others work well to create a kaleidoscope of conflict and betrayal and mayhem and forgiveness and family dysfunction that conjures empathy and, better yet, likability. In the story, we join Tommy and his crew in the quest the source of strange werewolf behavior and in their confrontation with hatred, bigotry, and corporate greed and mass control. The story presents these familiar issues lightly, but also with an air of reality that allows listeners on all ranges of the spectrum to relate. The writing is witty and clever and, best of all, does not get in the way of the story which was chock full of surprises and keeps moving forward until, unfortunately, it brings winds you to the graceful end.
The narrator did a super job with the characters, which makes my gripe with his handling of the role as “story-teller” sound contradictory even to me, but here it is. When he is out of “character-role” he sounds like a reporter, not a “story-teller.”