After his zany first novel, Busy Monsters, William Giraldi has gone over to the dark side with his Cormac McCarthy-like Hold the Dark, a brutal revenge tale.
In the small, isolated town of Keelut, Alaska, bad things are happening. Three children have been taken by wolves, never to be seen again--at least, that's what the villagers and Medora Slone believe. Medora's six-year-old son, Bailey, was taken, and after a fruitless search in the rough backcountry, she seeks help from Russell Core. He's a 60-year-old nature writer and wolf expert who loves wolves for their fierce will to survive. She writes him a letter: "Come and kill it to help me."
Russell is willing to help, but he knows wolves kill and eat children rarely, only if they are starving. When he meets Medora, "her face did not fit... she seemed not of this place at all." He sets off to track the wolf but feels that something else is going on. Giraldi then paints a clearer picture of this mysterious woman by describing her husband, Vernon, who's in the military, killing fighters in some unspecified country until he's wounded and sent home.
Russell returns without uncovering any evidence of the missing boy and finds Medora is gone. Soon, he does discover Bailey--strangled in the root cellar. Vernon arrives home to learn his son is dead and his wife missing. Unsure who to blame, Vernon goes on a killing spree reminiscent of the Judge's in Blood Meridian. Although the prose and story can sometimes seem forced, this novel casts an atmospheric, noirish spell that's hard to resist. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher