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A review by monty_reads
Wolf by Mo Hayder
4.0
Ballsy. That's the best word I can think of to describe Mo Hayder's work on her sixth Jack Caffery novel. It's ballsy for two reasons: 1) Caffery, the London detective who always takes center stage in these novels, is more or less a supporting character in this one, spending much of his time searching for the owner of a lost dog with a mysterious plea for help in its collar, and 2) it's now clear that what Hayder's doing isn't giving us a detective series as much as she's telling an epic-length story of a man consumed by his past. Birdman, Hayder's first Caffery book, stands on its own, but books 2-6 essentially tell one extended narrative. An extended narrative that comes to a none more black resolution at the end of this volume.
About that supporting character business. Most of the action takes place at an old mansion in rural England. A family is being held captive by two men who promise much torture and murder in the family's future. At one point, however, the mother is able to sneak the family dog out of the house with a note in its collar reading, "Help us." Caffery – through circumstances I won't spoil here – is tasked with finding the dog's owner. And that's what he does for much of the book: travel through the villages outside Bristol trying to piece together who this dog belongs to. The catch, of course, is that he doesn't know what we do: the clock is ticking, and ticking fast.
And that's all I'll relay here. Wolf is the work of someone who's pushing the boundaries of what detective fiction can do. Rather than be content to give us just another murder-of-the-week, Mo Hayder is going deeper and darker by using the crime genre to explore the nature of obsession and the danger of dwelling too much in the past.
About that supporting character business. Most of the action takes place at an old mansion in rural England. A family is being held captive by two men who promise much torture and murder in the family's future. At one point, however, the mother is able to sneak the family dog out of the house with a note in its collar reading, "Help us." Caffery – through circumstances I won't spoil here – is tasked with finding the dog's owner. And that's what he does for much of the book: travel through the villages outside Bristol trying to piece together who this dog belongs to. The catch, of course, is that he doesn't know what we do: the clock is ticking, and ticking fast.
And that's all I'll relay here. Wolf is the work of someone who's pushing the boundaries of what detective fiction can do. Rather than be content to give us just another murder-of-the-week, Mo Hayder is going deeper and darker by using the crime genre to explore the nature of obsession and the danger of dwelling too much in the past.