Werewolf - Hardcover

Rubie, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0681413948 ISBN 13: 9780681413948

Publisher: Longmeadow Pr, 1991

Synopsis

As a werewolf stalks World War II London, Detective Sergeant George Llewellyn and child molester Nevil Stimpson are forced to confront themselves, their painful pasts, and their worst fears

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Atmospheric boy-werewolf horror novel set against the London blitz. This is an inspired idea carried out through a less-than- gripping tale. In 1930, Detective Constable George Llewellyn leads a raid on a Gypsy camp on Smiths Common, which seems to have a regular abortionist, and where a pregnant woman gives birth during the raid to a full-term but ``deformed'' baby that causes that Gypsy abortionist to put the Evil Eye on Llewellyn: ``I curse you down the generations.'' Ten years later, the Battle of Britain is underway, with much of the story taking place as people crawl over all-present rubble and Nazi bombs light up the night. By now Llewellyn is a widower with his own coma-ridden or catatonic daughter under care in a special hospital--while Smiths Common is burdened by a rash of fresh corpses that suggests that some terrible wild beast is eating people, or parts of them. Llewellyn, now a detective sergeant, finds a bricked-up room in the basement of a derelict building where something has been manacled to a wall while being fed rats, cats, dogs, and Lord knows what-all, judging from the pile of bones in the stinking room. The reader is soon aware that a demented ten-year-old boy werewolf, the deformed baby Llewellyn, has escaped and is prowling the rubble. At the same time, a natural history of the werewolf is uncovered by Nevil Stimpson, an occultist of middle years, and through him the history of werewolves now in England. The climax is a chase through the rubble, the vicious boy werewolf hiding in pipes and Llewellyn reeling under his curse. The blacked-out rubble and impending bloodshed, as well as the slurp-slurp-crunch-crunch of the feeding werewolf, have their reading joys, but step-by-step police procedure fails to energize the storytelling. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal

Every night in World War II London, the bombs are falling. Amid the wreckage in the East End, bodies are found, torn as if eaten by wild animals. People are beginning to talk about werewolves. Police Detective George Llewellyn discounts this superstition but soon links the murders to the gypsies camped nearby, and to a man he has long suspected of being a child molester. What George does not realize is that he is himself a link to the killings; ten years earlier in a raid on the gypsy camp he unknowingly caused a tragedy, and now carries the gypsies' curse. His temper has driven away his wife, and his much-loved daughter is locked in a coma because of something he did, which he is now suppressing. In fact, there is a werewolf loose in the city, but will George realize the connection in time to stop the beast from killing again? Werewolf is a competently written horror novel, and the setting is unusual and well drawn. However, George never seems to come alive as a character, since much of his motivation is hidden, even from himself.
- A.M.B. Amantia, Population Crisis Committee Lib . , Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Longmeadow Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0681413948
• ISBN 13: 9780681413948
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1