Wolves of Paris

The award-winning author of The Way of the Gladiator brings to life medieval Paris and the wolves who held it hostage, in this novel based on real events.

Praised as “nature writing at its best,” The Wolves of Paris takes readers to fifteenth-century France, a country so decimated by the Hundred Years’ War that its people became prey for marauding wolf packs (Hartford Courant). With France split among the English, the Burgundians, and the forces of the weak Charles VII, a wolf-dog rises to ensure the existence of his pack by any means necessary . . .

Courtaud begins his life as the possession of a count until an attack on the castle leaves him to fend for himself. To survive, the huge, russet-colored beast ingratiates himself into a pack of wolves he will soon lead, with his mate, Silver, at his side. Without the wild wolf’s innate fear of man—and driven to starvation by vicious winters—Courtaud turns his pack to hunting livestock on its way to Paris. Battles and the plague leave corpses in their path, stoking the wolves’ lust for human flesh. Soon, Courtaud’s howl alone will strike fear into the hearts of Parisians, prompting a king to put a price on his head—and history to remember his name.

“Daniel Mannix gets right inside any animal skin. . . . His hero Courtaud is the most feared and celebrated of all wolves, and this story of his life and times, based on medieval archives, should add to the fistful of awards already garnered by Mannix. . . . It will haunt almost anyone.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Daniel P. Mannix was an award-winning American author and journalist, as well as a magician and filmmaker. Mannix’s magazine articles about his experiences in the carnival, where he performed under the stage name “The Great Zadma,” became popular in the mid-1940s and were compiled with the assistance of his wife in the book Step Right Up! His dozens of books and extensive essays range in subject from children’s animal stories, environmental issues, and hunting accounts to historical examinations of the Hellfire Club, the Atlantic slave trade, and the Roman gladiatorial games. Mannix was particularly interested in the Wizard of Oz canon and composed a biography of L. Frank Baum for American Heritage magazine in the 1960s.