Shadow Pack

Cops in Texas are being murdered. They look like mob hits, but someone has gotten creative and is using a wolf as the murder weapon. When Lieutenant Harrington catches the most recent case, he calls in his old army buddy, Michael Biörn, a park ranger living in Yellowstone, an expert on wolves… and not entirely human, as Harrington had seen one bloody day in Somalia.

Michael’s conclusion: werewolves. But some things don’t add up. When Harrington suffers the same fate as the victim they are investigating, Michael gets drawn into a shadow conflict between the mob, the werewolves, and the local cops who can’t quite prove he’s involved. As the violence escalates and the level of praeternatural involvement increases, Michael will have to unravel the increasingly complex threads of conspiracy and stand alone to protect the few people he’s come to care about, but he has one advantage – he is something far older, stronger, and more savage than any mere werewolf.

Marc Daniel’s Shadow Pack is a fast-moving, no-frills mob thriller/murder mystery with werewolves. The story is bloody and action-packed, and the plot is compelling enough to keep you turning pages. The writing style is straightforward and simple, though a bit heavy on exposition, which, combined with the pace of the plot, made character development feel more artificial than organic. The ending of the book feels somewhat forced, with all the various threads tied up and presented a little too neatly. The result is a book that may be better suited toward targeting a YA audience. A handful of minor typos also appear, but they are not severe enough to distract from the story.

These quibbles aside, Shadow Pack is a healthy beginning to the career of an author who, clearly, enjoyed writing it. I will be interested to see what he produces in the future.