First of all I was happy to discover that this was NOT a story about werewolves. Rather it’s about someone unleashing a genetically engineered wolf species that has been extinct for thousands of years upon the unsuspecting residents of a small Missouri town. The author did an excellent job of several things I look for in a good book. The imagery was vivid and made you feel as if you were there, the characters were convincing and easy to visualize plus I could even hear them in my head in some cases, dialog was smooth, there was an appropriate emotional element, plenty of action and lots of suspense. It was well-written including the use of an omniscient viewpoint with only a few errors typical of a full-length novel. I will admit that I’m quite picky about such things and most people probably wouldn’t even notice that the couch in the protagonist’s living room went from blue to green in the course of a few pages. It was a good read that I enjoyed. It kept me wondering what would happen next and I felt as if I knew the main characters.

The only reason I’m not giving this novel five stars is the ending. I found part of it somewhat contrived and there was a major loose end that I felt was glossed over and never resolved in a satisfying manner that I won’t go into because it would constitute a definite spoiler if I did. I will say that it was one of the reasons I kept turning the pages and was disappointed that my curiosity was not satisfied. Another thing of a strictly subjective nature for which I don’t fault the author is that with an underlying theme of genetic engineering, as a science fiction fan I would have enjoyed it a bit more if that angle had been further developed. The main character in this story, Mark Lansdowne, is not a scientist, however, but a badass “special ops” type so it follows that this didn’t occur. I’m only pointing this out in case you may be looking for a bit more on the science fiction side. So this is NOT about werewolves, is NOT science fiction but does constitute a good read regarding a horrific terror being unleashed on a small town.