Forbidden

Bestseller Armstrong’s latest Otherworld stand-alone novella, set after the events of 2010’s Frostbitten, is an appetizing morsel of a mystery sure to whet appetites for the rest of the series. Lone werewolf Morgan Walsh decamps from self-imposed Alaskan isolation and goes in search of the North American Pack, only to be arrested after being found naked in the woods of upstate New York. When Pack leader-in-waiting Elena Michaels and her companion, Clayton Danvers, arrive to bail Morgan out, a chance finding of a chewed corpse leads the three to discover the area is a “Bermuda Triangle for drifters.” As the investigation brings them closer to the unusual inhabitants of the small town, including the witch police chief and an officer with a fetish for corpse pictures, the three wolves become the hunted. With sneaky, surprising pacing and well-drawn likable characters, Armstrong capably uncovers the darkness underlying a quintessential small American town. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency. (Jan.)