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Mike The Werewolf: A Humorous Werewolf Thriller
WITH A MAN'S BEST FRIEND LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?
My name's Mike Walden and I’m a trash collector from rural Pennsylvania. I have a good job, friends, and a family I adore. There’s just one small problem. I’m a werewolf with a split personality.
Winston, as I call my inner wolf, is not only awake and aware, he’s somehow in control of half my body. Worse, this hound from Hell’s got an appetite for household pets and zero regard for human life. He’s dead set on being top dog in this relationship and it’s all I can do to keep this savage beast at bay.
Things are bad enough, but now the leader of the local pack has a bone to pick with me. He’s out for blood and my witch of an ex-girlfriend is egging him on. With his army of feral beasts nipping at my backside and Mennonite monster hunters hot on both our tails, Winston and I will need to set aside our differences, otherwise the only howling we’ll be doing will be from beyond the grave.
----------
From Rick Gualtieri and the world of Bill The Vampire, comes a hilarious new horror comedy about a man whose inner beast is in dire need of a flea bath.
If you’re a fan of Hunter Blain, Steve McHugh, or What We Do in the Shadows, this supernatural comedy will leave you drooling for more.
Grab your copy of Mike The Werewolf today and prepare to howl with laughter.
My name's Mike Walden and I’m a trash collector from rural Pennsylvania. I have a good job, friends, and a family I adore. There’s just one small problem. I’m a werewolf with a split personality.
Winston, as I call my inner wolf, is not only awake and aware, he’s somehow in control of half my body. Worse, this hound from Hell’s got an appetite for household pets and zero regard for human life. He’s dead set on being top dog in this relationship and it’s all I can do to keep this savage beast at bay.
Things are bad enough, but now the leader of the local pack has a bone to pick with me. He’s out for blood and my witch of an ex-girlfriend is egging him on. With his army of feral beasts nipping at my backside and Mennonite monster hunters hot on both our tails, Winston and I will need to set aside our differences, otherwise the only howling we’ll be doing will be from beyond the grave.
----------
From Rick Gualtieri and the world of Bill The Vampire, comes a hilarious new horror comedy about a man whose inner beast is in dire need of a flea bath.
If you’re a fan of Hunter Blain, Steve McHugh, or What We Do in the Shadows, this supernatural comedy will leave you drooling for more.
Grab your copy of Mike The Werewolf today and prepare to howl with laughter.
- GenresFantasy
400 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 29, 2025
67 people are currently reading
10 people want to read
About the author
Rick Gualtieri
90 books766 followersRick Gualtieri loves to write adventure, mayhem, and snarky dialogue. His bestselling Tome of Bill series combines all of this into a world of supernatural danger with hard-hitting action and plenty of sharp-tongued geeky humor.
Rick lives alone in a dark, evil place called New Jersey with only his wife, three kids, and countless pets to both keep him company and constantly plot against him. When he's not busy monkey-clicking out words, he can typically be found jealously guarding his collection of vintage Transformers from all who would seek to defile them.
Defilers beware!
Email: rickg.author@gmail.com
Facebook: facebook.com/RickGualtieriAuthor
Rick lives alone in a dark, evil place called New Jersey with only his wife, three kids, and countless pets to both keep him company and constantly plot against him. When he's not busy monkey-clicking out words, he can typically be found jealously guarding his collection of vintage Transformers from all who would seek to defile them.
Defilers beware!
Email: rickg.author@gmail.com
Facebook: facebook.com/RickGualtieriAuthor
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 7, 2026
More chaotic fun in a Bill spin off
Werewolves are much grosser than expected and hilariously so. I’m firmly convinced that Winston is a good boy. Mike is endearing, and since when is Ed kind of hot? Some of his lines had me laughing out loud. As always, it’s great fun to read and I’m looking forward to more adventures.
Werewolves are much grosser than expected and hilariously so. I’m firmly convinced that Winston is a good boy. Mike is endearing, and since when is Ed kind of hot? Some of his lines had me laughing out loud. As always, it’s great fun to read and I’m looking forward to more adventures.
January 19, 2026
A werewolf with multiple personality disorder. Who’d have ever guessed?
3 ½ stars. Legend says that a wise metaphor was shared from generation to generation by Indigenous Americans that went something like this: "Inside each of us are two wolves: One is evil, including our capacity for anger, envy, greed, arrogance, and ego among others. The other is good, including our ability to feel and share joy, peace, love, hope, truth, compassion and faith. And which of these wolves will ultimately win out? Naturally the one we feed the most." Very wise indeed, even if it doesn't take into account of course that trying to feed two pet canines at once is a lesson in futility and madness. But let's not digress down that path just yet…
Honestly, this was the sort of lazy writing that would cause me to turn off a horror movie halfway through.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure all this applies to one Michael Hunter Walden - Mike to his friends - who is the… star? of Rick Gualtieri's latest dip into the deep chasm that passes as the historical pool in the "Bill the Vampire" universe, namely, "Mike The Werewolf: A Humorous Werewolf Thriller (Howling Mad Monsters Book 1)." And speaking of the Bill-o-verse, the events of this book take place roughly two weeks after the events of "The Liching Hour (Bill of the Dead #4)" - known to those that, um, know as the Strange Days - which was a giant clusterfuck of absolutely epic proportions (I'll return to these events shortly). People were killed (or worse), New York was nearly destroyed by a psychic dinosaur-like Leviathan that was powerful enough to survive living in the Hudson River, all kinds of new beasties made themselves known to, well, themselves as well as to their fellow man (and fellow non-humans) and it was just a mess through and through. Anyway…
There were things out there that were more than I’d signed up for…
You see we quickly find out that Mike is not alone in this world, which arguably we already knew (because we used are branes!). Mike has in fact grown up as an unsuspecting human, yes, who is content to go through life as a trash collector with the Harris County Public Works Department in rural Pennsylvania. However, he, like so many of those around him - including his mother and father - were part of the world that found themselves essentially "zapped" into becoming aware they were in fact werewolves or whatever beasties folks inherently were. Not a bad deal all things considered - country areas are fine for huntin'! - even with some local 'wolf politics' to deal with (surprise, surprise, there's a fight to see who is gonna be the Alpha!) … But one of the aftereffects of whatever the hell it is Mike did during his time in the big city (I'm still going to return to those events) is that he's picked up a rider INSIDE HIS OWN mind. We eventually name this charming fellow (hint: he's ALL werewolf) Winston. It could have been worse I guess but there you go.
I came, I saw, I turned these assholes into meat confetti.
Now here we are at the door of one of the first things that didn't exactly work out for me as well as other tales from the Land of Gualtieri. Note that G-land is a big country which by my count includes AT LEAST 25 books, none of which I've rated below 3½ stars and that was the very first, that is, "Bill the Vampire" because what the fuck did I know about literary addiction and just what the hell I had gotten myself into? However, one of the strengths of EACH AND EVERY book I've read is that they feature large, often arena-filled numbers of characters and/or species that all bounce(d) off each other - both literally and often even amorously and even vigorously so. Which has been a huge part of the fun keeping up with the new divisions of players, who crossed whom, and so on! However, following along with a werewolf essentially suffering from multiple-personality disorder (was it another personality or another separate entity or a crossed wire or…?) was decidedly not the same. Alas and what not.
In a world of fucked up shit, that’s ... extra fucked-up.
Don't misunderstand (or do, I don't care): there are other characters in this book of course - it's not just Mike running around seemingly screaming at himself - including apparently Ed the Vampire Progenitor (huh?) and his stepdad Jacob Vesser. They come in quite handy in fact, as do the rogue Mennonite sect of werewolf hunters who give Mike/Winston somewhat of a pass while still holding their end of keeping a large, magical quarantine in place. Luckily, the Mennonites have known about werewolves for eons compared to just 3 months for the rest of us (no we don't know how or why yet but like insurance, aren't we glad they were there when we needed it? And yes, I suspect we'll have to pay their help back with interest...).
Guess even a blind wolf occasionally finds a squirrel.
But happily, all these side folks also help fight against Mike's witchy (literally and figuratively) ex-girlfriend Myra who couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to hump her former beau ("I was now stuck as the unwilling participant in the world’s strangest threesome…") or cut his head off. Still, things aren't all bad as the world has developed a new market in coating all kinds of things in silver and making sure that freedom loving 'Muricans everywhere still have enough fire power on hand to take down the entire Far East should they try to invade our shores (and they will dammit, you just wait and see). But the character list doesn't get very much more extensive than that unless you're adding up a lot of folks that were around just to make sure the body count was sufficient to pass muster once the body bags were needed.
Don’t imagine what they tasted like. Don’t you dare!
And here's where I'm trying to be honest: without a lot of in-depth interactions around him, Mike was not the strongest character that ever carried one of these books before and that's comparing him to Book 1 "Hi, my name is Bill, see me riding the subway" as well. Even when Dallas lumbers into the picture - a name which many will no doubt remember (that thing I'm to mention is still coming up). Sure, he - Mike, I mean - manages to escape all kinds of danger, including apparently serial killers (whom we never really see, at least not in whole pieces) and takes part in an absolutely kickass battle sequence - no, I will NEVER bad-mouth a good Gualtieri-written battle sequence ("…shut up and enjoy the show because shit’s about to get messy.")! - along with some of the crew I mention above but otherwise…? Mundane trashman to the rescue! I just can't come up with a real great catchphrase for that myself! And Winston is just way too feral and quite frankly more than a tad rude? gruff? ill-mannered? to get all snuggly with so…
Get it together, you shit eating witch fucker!
What I'm saying in a round about kind of way is that I had some trouble identifying with this one mostly because of the lack of identifiable characters. I also had some trouble remembering the finer details leading to this offshoot of the Bill-o-verse simply because I read "The Liching Hour" in September of '22, just mere weeks after its official launch. And if you ask me to go into detail about THAT book, well, yeah, there were witches and werewolves and vampires and big ol' Kaiju and I even remember a squishy alienesque thing in a dead dog body suit… but sorry kids, this old-timer (spits and dances a wee jig for effect) just doesn't remember anyone named Mike being involved at all. So I had no conscious history of Mike nor did I really get into Mike no matter how much he tried to imitate Steven Martin and Lily Tomlin learning to pee together in the 1984 dud "All of Me" (oh and for clarity: I just read the Wikipedia synopsis about that movie and apparently I'm forgetting more things than I thought, including just how terrible that movie was)!
It’s not like this curse came with an instruction manual.
In conclusion then: despite my rainy morning, "woe is me"-esque comments, this was still a very good book. I'd put Gualtieri's least popular book against 95%+ of all the urban fantasy books out there and know it would win in terms of entertainment value, execution, and general wowness. Do I hold him to a higher standard than most other writers? Absolutely. The fact that I found this somewhat of a less strong Gualtieri offer only tells me that I practically worship the guy's skills and, quite frankly, expected and hoped for a bit more. If that makes me the bad wolf, well, I'll just let Winston take over and see what he has to say!
3 ½ stars. Legend says that a wise metaphor was shared from generation to generation by Indigenous Americans that went something like this: "Inside each of us are two wolves: One is evil, including our capacity for anger, envy, greed, arrogance, and ego among others. The other is good, including our ability to feel and share joy, peace, love, hope, truth, compassion and faith. And which of these wolves will ultimately win out? Naturally the one we feed the most." Very wise indeed, even if it doesn't take into account of course that trying to feed two pet canines at once is a lesson in futility and madness. But let's not digress down that path just yet…
Honestly, this was the sort of lazy writing that would cause me to turn off a horror movie halfway through.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure all this applies to one Michael Hunter Walden - Mike to his friends - who is the… star? of Rick Gualtieri's latest dip into the deep chasm that passes as the historical pool in the "Bill the Vampire" universe, namely, "Mike The Werewolf: A Humorous Werewolf Thriller (Howling Mad Monsters Book 1)." And speaking of the Bill-o-verse, the events of this book take place roughly two weeks after the events of "The Liching Hour (Bill of the Dead #4)" - known to those that, um, know as the Strange Days - which was a giant clusterfuck of absolutely epic proportions (I'll return to these events shortly). People were killed (or worse), New York was nearly destroyed by a psychic dinosaur-like Leviathan that was powerful enough to survive living in the Hudson River, all kinds of new beasties made themselves known to, well, themselves as well as to their fellow man (and fellow non-humans) and it was just a mess through and through. Anyway…
There were things out there that were more than I’d signed up for…
You see we quickly find out that Mike is not alone in this world, which arguably we already knew (because we used are branes!). Mike has in fact grown up as an unsuspecting human, yes, who is content to go through life as a trash collector with the Harris County Public Works Department in rural Pennsylvania. However, he, like so many of those around him - including his mother and father - were part of the world that found themselves essentially "zapped" into becoming aware they were in fact werewolves or whatever beasties folks inherently were. Not a bad deal all things considered - country areas are fine for huntin'! - even with some local 'wolf politics' to deal with (surprise, surprise, there's a fight to see who is gonna be the Alpha!) … But one of the aftereffects of whatever the hell it is Mike did during his time in the big city (I'm still going to return to those events) is that he's picked up a rider INSIDE HIS OWN mind. We eventually name this charming fellow (hint: he's ALL werewolf) Winston. It could have been worse I guess but there you go.
I came, I saw, I turned these assholes into meat confetti.
Now here we are at the door of one of the first things that didn't exactly work out for me as well as other tales from the Land of Gualtieri. Note that G-land is a big country which by my count includes AT LEAST 25 books, none of which I've rated below 3½ stars and that was the very first, that is, "Bill the Vampire" because what the fuck did I know about literary addiction and just what the hell I had gotten myself into? However, one of the strengths of EACH AND EVERY book I've read is that they feature large, often arena-filled numbers of characters and/or species that all bounce(d) off each other - both literally and often even amorously and even vigorously so. Which has been a huge part of the fun keeping up with the new divisions of players, who crossed whom, and so on! However, following along with a werewolf essentially suffering from multiple-personality disorder (was it another personality or another separate entity or a crossed wire or…?) was decidedly not the same. Alas and what not.
In a world of fucked up shit, that’s ... extra fucked-up.
Don't misunderstand (or do, I don't care): there are other characters in this book of course - it's not just Mike running around seemingly screaming at himself - including apparently Ed the Vampire Progenitor (huh?) and his stepdad Jacob Vesser. They come in quite handy in fact, as do the rogue Mennonite sect of werewolf hunters who give Mike/Winston somewhat of a pass while still holding their end of keeping a large, magical quarantine in place. Luckily, the Mennonites have known about werewolves for eons compared to just 3 months for the rest of us (no we don't know how or why yet but like insurance, aren't we glad they were there when we needed it? And yes, I suspect we'll have to pay their help back with interest...).
Guess even a blind wolf occasionally finds a squirrel.
But happily, all these side folks also help fight against Mike's witchy (literally and figuratively) ex-girlfriend Myra who couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to hump her former beau ("I was now stuck as the unwilling participant in the world’s strangest threesome…") or cut his head off. Still, things aren't all bad as the world has developed a new market in coating all kinds of things in silver and making sure that freedom loving 'Muricans everywhere still have enough fire power on hand to take down the entire Far East should they try to invade our shores (and they will dammit, you just wait and see). But the character list doesn't get very much more extensive than that unless you're adding up a lot of folks that were around just to make sure the body count was sufficient to pass muster once the body bags were needed.
Don’t imagine what they tasted like. Don’t you dare!
And here's where I'm trying to be honest: without a lot of in-depth interactions around him, Mike was not the strongest character that ever carried one of these books before and that's comparing him to Book 1 "Hi, my name is Bill, see me riding the subway" as well. Even when Dallas lumbers into the picture - a name which many will no doubt remember (that thing I'm to mention is still coming up). Sure, he - Mike, I mean - manages to escape all kinds of danger, including apparently serial killers (whom we never really see, at least not in whole pieces) and takes part in an absolutely kickass battle sequence - no, I will NEVER bad-mouth a good Gualtieri-written battle sequence ("…shut up and enjoy the show because shit’s about to get messy.")! - along with some of the crew I mention above but otherwise…? Mundane trashman to the rescue! I just can't come up with a real great catchphrase for that myself! And Winston is just way too feral and quite frankly more than a tad rude? gruff? ill-mannered? to get all snuggly with so…
Get it together, you shit eating witch fucker!
What I'm saying in a round about kind of way is that I had some trouble identifying with this one mostly because of the lack of identifiable characters. I also had some trouble remembering the finer details leading to this offshoot of the Bill-o-verse simply because I read "The Liching Hour" in September of '22, just mere weeks after its official launch. And if you ask me to go into detail about THAT book, well, yeah, there were witches and werewolves and vampires and big ol' Kaiju and I even remember a squishy alienesque thing in a dead dog body suit… but sorry kids, this old-timer (spits and dances a wee jig for effect) just doesn't remember anyone named Mike being involved at all. So I had no conscious history of Mike nor did I really get into Mike no matter how much he tried to imitate Steven Martin and Lily Tomlin learning to pee together in the 1984 dud "All of Me" (oh and for clarity: I just read the Wikipedia synopsis about that movie and apparently I'm forgetting more things than I thought, including just how terrible that movie was)!
It’s not like this curse came with an instruction manual.
In conclusion then: despite my rainy morning, "woe is me"-esque comments, this was still a very good book. I'd put Gualtieri's least popular book against 95%+ of all the urban fantasy books out there and know it would win in terms of entertainment value, execution, and general wowness. Do I hold him to a higher standard than most other writers? Absolutely. The fact that I found this somewhat of a less strong Gualtieri offer only tells me that I practically worship the guy's skills and, quite frankly, expected and hoped for a bit more. If that makes me the bad wolf, well, I'll just let Winston take over and see what he has to say!
January 11, 2026
Main character is not fit to be an alpha
Main character needs to stop being a sniveling coward and start being the alpha wolf he is. Taking forever to read this book with such a spineless main character. Can only read a few pages at a time because of the cowardly nature of the lead. Makes it difficult to keep reading. Normally I can get through a book like this in a couple hours. Unfortunately the pathetic nature of the main character has me needing to stop every few pages lest I vomit. So I am on day 3 with 104 pages down.
I really hope this author shifts in the next few days and starts creating a main wolf who is more viable and strong or I will need to do something I have rarely done and abandon this book unfinished and take the authors works off my read list.
I will try to at least finish the book and give a final review, but if this is how the author truly believes a man or alpha should act, we are too culturally and ethically different for me to survive being of any reading pleasure.
Main character needs to stop being a sniveling coward and start being the alpha wolf he is. Taking forever to read this book with such a spineless main character. Can only read a few pages at a time because of the cowardly nature of the lead. Makes it difficult to keep reading. Normally I can get through a book like this in a couple hours. Unfortunately the pathetic nature of the main character has me needing to stop every few pages lest I vomit. So I am on day 3 with 104 pages down.
I really hope this author shifts in the next few days and starts creating a main wolf who is more viable and strong or I will need to do something I have rarely done and abandon this book unfinished and take the authors works off my read list.
I will try to at least finish the book and give a final review, but if this is how the author truly believes a man or alpha should act, we are too culturally and ethically different for me to survive being of any reading pleasure.
January 2, 2026
Sand lot for monsters? Nah, it's complicated.
For years the entire town attended a monthly meeting, all of them taking a little pill. Then they went about their daily life. Until the others didn't show up. That was five years ago. Now it's all come back, like a snapped rubber band, sharp and painful. People Mike has known all his life, friends, family, townspeople, are all monsters. And despite doing all he can to foster kumbaya Mike is losing. This attracts the wrong attention, before it gets out of hand Mike has to ally with his split personality, the Mennonites and vampires.
This was a new take on the supernatural. I liked it once I made it past the prologue and the first chapter. The prologue is beyond strange and could put someone looking for an easy read off. Because you don't start to understand until about two chapters in. And the first chapter is not a good fit with queasy stomachs.
For years the entire town attended a monthly meeting, all of them taking a little pill. Then they went about their daily life. Until the others didn't show up. That was five years ago. Now it's all come back, like a snapped rubber band, sharp and painful. People Mike has known all his life, friends, family, townspeople, are all monsters. And despite doing all he can to foster kumbaya Mike is losing. This attracts the wrong attention, before it gets out of hand Mike has to ally with his split personality, the Mennonites and vampires.
This was a new take on the supernatural. I liked it once I made it past the prologue and the first chapter. The prologue is beyond strange and could put someone looking for an easy read off. Because you don't start to understand until about two chapters in. And the first chapter is not a good fit with queasy stomachs.
February 5, 2026
I always love Rick's books. This one was no different. We meet Mike, the mild mannered trashman, and we'll, werewolf. This book didn't disappoint. We had humor, snark, mayhem and all set in the same world as The Bill The Vampire series. So there was some familiarity to the world set up. So if you like a little comedy, a little horror a bit of wtf did I just read or a nice pallet cleanser. Pick up and read this book. A great line near the end was " you humans are all fkn idiots". Gotta love it.
January 28, 2026
So The Adventure Continues
Want to have a howling good time? Climb aboard and experience the adventures of Mike The Werewolf in this first book along with some old characters from past series. Always a quirky read😁
Want to have a howling good time? Climb aboard and experience the adventures of Mike The Werewolf in this first book along with some old characters from past series. Always a quirky read😁
January 14, 2026
Did you like Bill the Vampire? If so, you'll love this. It's silly and very readable.
February 2, 2026
After a couple of heavy and emotionally draining books this was just what I needed. I love the tie in with the bigger Bill-Verse and Mike & Winston were hilariously awesome together. Looking forward to the next book in the series.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews