Book Summary and Reviews of Wolvers by Taylor Brown

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Kathryn_H

A complex tale: save or eliminate wolves?
Wolf One-Eleven knows she’s being tracked by men who want to kill her. Her name comes from the governmental body seeking to protect wolves. However, some people want to eliminate wolves. Trace Temple has a bone to pick: his family lost their ranch —directly or indirectly, depending on how you look at it —because of wolves.

Two other men figure prominently in “Wolvers.” Both want to eliminate the wolf and possibly one another. They hike around the Gila Mountains in the American Southwest, carrying sophisticated weaponry. These mountains are almost like a character themselves. They significantly influence the action due to the danger they pose to those who travel through them.

“Wolvers” is an exciting story and I had no idea how it would end. Would One-Eleven and her pups survive the relentless attacks on their lives? Would Trace and the other wolvers survive?

I wanted to read “Wolvers” because I enjoyed Brown’s “Rednecks” so much. The latter described the 1920-1921 West Virginia Mine Wars, which in part caught my interest because this was the largest armed conflict on American soil since the Civil War.

labmom55

Dark and suspenseful
3.5 stars, rounded up

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Wolvers. For starters, one of the main characters is a she-wolf known as One-Eleven. The last thing I wanted was a wolf anthropomorphized. Brown tried to walk the fine line of not giving her human thoughts. I’m not sure he always succeeded. Would a wolf understand the concept of a trap? The plot covers the battle between the pro-wolf contingency and the haters. The haters were not just ranchers and outfitters, as you would expect, but militia who see going after the wolf as a symbol of their fight for “freedom”.

The story begins with a wolver named Trace. His family lost their ranch due to shooting a tagged wolf. Now, he’s a gun for hire. He has a “change of heart” as the blurb calls it, but it needed to be better explained. In the Author’s Note, Brown mentions this was a frequent occurrence with historical Wolvers and we are meant to assume just watching them leads them to change their mind.

Then the men who had hired him hire Murdoch as a replacement whose job is to get not just One-Eleven but also Trace, who supposedly knows too much. Throw in Horn, a wolf-protector, for good measure. My problem was that none of the humans felt real. Murdoch, in particular, felt like a cliche.

There are some graphic scenes here, so be prepared. The story is dark and heavy on the macho sentiments. It also goes into the political arena in a way I didn’t expect.
On the positive side, Brown does have a good way with words. I loved his descriptions of nature. The book shone most when humans weren’t in the mix.

My thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of this book.

Other books by Taylor Brown at BookBrowse

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