Good thriller but not spooky.
Some bad language.
Wolf Hunt is a pretty good, exciting and tense thriller with a dose of humor. What it isn't is scary. No slow, atmospheric buildup to a realization that there really is a werewolf. This isn't H.P. Lovecraft. The werewolf just jumps right out and slaps the reader in the face with its bloodlusting existence. The werewolf itself and its seemingly unstoppable homicide spree, complete with buckets of blood and gore, is the horror. There is revulsion at the werewolf's sadistic torture killings but no skin crawling, cold chills, look-over-your-shoulder while reading horror. Just a bulletproof, sadistic, psychopathic serial killer with fur and long teeth and claws. Here is an example:
"Rustling in the bushes.
'I think he’s coming back,' George said.
A dark shape, like a basketball, flew into the air from amidst the trees. George realized that it was Prescott’s severed head about two seconds before it splattered against the hood of the van. It rolled off and fell to the ground. Damn it. That wasn’t the action of a sufficiently tranquilized werewolf. Something else flew into the air. Half of an arm. It sailed right through the broken windshield and landed on the seat next to George. He recoiled in horror. A leg followed. This one came up a few feet short and landed on the dirt path in front of the van. The second leg struck the front hood, only a couple of inches from where the head landed. It remained there. 'Stop it, you son of a bitch!' George shouted. Oh, nice one, dumb-ass. As if Ivan would cease his grotesque attack based on George’s request. The rest of the first arm missed the van. The second arm, thrown in its entirety, hit the roof. Michele screamed. Where in the world was Angie? Ivan was out there throwing body parts at them. How could she not find him? The next wave was a volley of internal organs, flung quickly, one after the other. And, finally, Prescott’s bloody and shredded jumpsuit. George just stared at the carnage in a state of disbelief. Even having seen Ivan’s malicious thrill-killing ways up close, it was still hard to imagine that he’d tear somebody into pieces and pelt a frickin’ van with them! He wondered what happened to the ribcage and spinal column. Ivan stepped onto the path, still fully transformed as a wolfman. He wasn’t holding Prescott’s ribcage—that was presumably a mystery never to be solved."
Well that scene was pretty gross, intense even but not really bone-chilling horror. If this were a movie it would be much closer to a blood and gore slasher flick than to Alfred Hitchcock.
I read this book because of a review by my Goodreads friend, Gilbert Stack. I read the review hurriedly and was surprised, after I finished the book, to find that he thought more of the book than did I. So I reread the review more carefully and discovered that he didn't read the book. He listened to an apparently very well done audible version. I understand now. I believe this book is probably much better to listen to if read well. It also has the potential to be a good movie.
Four stars because while this isn't scary and spooky, it is a decent thriller with a couple of bumbling, semi-comic, if not loveable main characters.