Wolf

Wolf by Mo Hayder

Published by Bantam Press

24th April 2014

Paperback Edition

                       

I believe, from what I can hear, that either my daughter or my wife has just been attacked. I don't know the outcome. The house is silent.

Fourteen years ago two teenage lovers were brutally murdered in a patch of remote woodland. The prime suspect confessed to the crimes and was imprisoned.

Now, one family is still trying to put the memory of the killings behind them. But at their isolated hilltop house . . . the nightmare is about to return.

So on the recurring animal theme for this week, not deliberate I assure you, is Mo Hayder's Wolf.  Similarly to Jodi Picoult, I haven't read a book by Mo Hayder is absolutely ages, but I do have two to review - this one and Poppet.  Thinking that this one came first, I started with this, only at the end to realise that I should really have read Poppet beforehand!  That said, her books are stand-alone novels, it is just that the main character (Jack Caffery) who is principally consistent throughout.

Wolf begins with a family returning to their holiday home.  Mr Anchor-Ferrers has just had a heart transplant and needs to rest, only fate has deemed that this is not to be the case.  This is a book where it could be so easy to put a spoiler in, whilst trying to write about the story itself, so this review won't be too detailed as I detest plot giveaways!  What you do already know is that fourteen years prior to the present day, a young couple were brutally murdered in woodland surrounding this house.  The killer though is safely behind bars - or is he?!

Mo Hayder writes a gripping thriller.  This is a total page-turner and I couldn't put it down.  There is a twist at the end that I wasn't expecting either which I really liked.  The books are written with shades of light and dark to them.  It's not just gritty drama that you are faced with, but real people, and emotions and I have to say that the characters in these books are certainly not two-dimensional.  You do see them as human beings, particularly Jack Caffery .  I'm looking forward to reading Poppet now!

Happy Reading

Miss Chapter x