cover image Werewolf

Werewolf

Peter Rubie. Longmeadow Press, $15.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-681-41394-8

``It ain't enough we got bloody Hitler bombing hell out of us,'' a frustrated police officer observes in this compelling take on one of horror's most enduring monsters. Vividly reinventing Blitz-strafed London with an intriguing twist, Rubie ( Mindbender ) has given his lycanthrope free rein to wander, to murder and then to hide amid the city's rubble. Detective Sgt.George Llewellyn--a man with secrets and rages of his own--becomes increasingly puzzled as the weeks go by and more mutilated bodies are discovered in the ruins: all of the corpses look as though they've been attacked by some sort of animal. Relying first and foremost on his common sense, Llewellyn rules out a marauding beast in favor of a few logical human suspects: the reclusive Stepan sisters; an encampment of gypsies on the edge of town; and tarot reader and old adversary Nevil Stimpson. Only when subsequent corpses surface and all other leads prove futile is Llewellyn forced to confront the nightmarish truth in a climactic scene sure to thrill devotees of the wolfman. (Jan.)