Harry Shannon loves a good monster. You can tell by the pleasure he takes in bending the familiar tropes to his own ends, reshaping them into new and entertaining adventures with a cinematic flair. Here he takes on the werewolf, until recently an almost forgotten monster.

A plethora of new werewolf novels lately (including for instance my own WOLF'S TRAP, John Harvey's THE CLEANSING and Lee Killough's WILDING NIGHTS) is testament to the longevity of the lycanthropic mythology and its subtexts. Like Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, the classic werewolf (such as Hollywood's Larry Talbot) symbolizes man's dual nature—man and beast, angel and demon, good and bad. The monster within is a well-traveled path in literature, and for good reason. We are intrigued by the knowledge that each of us hides a dark, perhaps even evil side. Our neighbor waves hello, but beats his wife. The cop who protects us exploits his uniform. Sometimes people who are sworn to help us also betray us. While the werewolf is perhaps an exaggerated symbol of these paradoxical relationships, it is also a logical one. Why had we forgotten all about this human-wolf hybrid?

Maybe because the werewolf is less romantic than the vampire who tends to be an enticing figure, one of suave sexuality. The blood-sucking is most often used as a metaphor for sex, the swapping of bodily fluids brought to its most basic form. But as a complete opposite, there's an earthiness about the werewolf, a close relationship to the land, if you will, along with a slavery to the lunar cycle (but let's not make any PMS "monthly curse" jokes here), plus an intrinsically violent aspect, all of which transform the classic monster into a more tragic figure. Most often the werewolf cannot control his/her wild side nearly as well as a vampire, and the result is that victims are savaged rather than ravaged. No pleasure in it, practically or implied. That is, let's say you'd rather have your blood sucked through two tiny holes in the neck (or wherever) than having your throat ripped out and your entrails strewn about and half-eaten. I assume. But I digress.

Harry Shannon weaves such a tale of tragic monsters in NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF, a suspenseful cross-country chase that ends in a remote mountainside cabin. When Kelly, who works for a sleazy low budget movie mogul, delegates the delivery of a package to a morally-challenged subordinate, she sets in motion a chain of events which culminates in the crossing of paths between her and a burned-out ex-cop, a motorcycle gang, a pair of mob killers, a usually peace-loving pack of werewolves with a long history, a town doctor with a past, and a few more folks with something to lose or gain. Shannon's a tease, naming many of his characters with a Who's Who of Horror open beside him, giving back as it were to the genre he so clearly loves. The novel is a tribute to all those marauding "wild ones" novels (and movies) in which a final stand must be made in some barely defensible place. Getting there is fun even though we know from the start what they're facing, because the characters hold our interest and our sympathies—for instance Joe Case, the cop whose family was slaughtered and who took the law into his own hands before sinking into a bottle, and the tough-talking but fragile Kelly, whose job in Hollywood is all she has to cling to, and the various secondary characters we meet in Salt Lick, State of Nowhere.

Equal measures of horror and noir brew up a potent cocktail you'll love sipping. It's a tribute to the classic monsters Shannon began with NIGHT OF THE BEAST, and I'm sure it will lead up to a third Romero-esque chapter to savor when a blast from the past is what the evil doctor ordered.