With temperatures keeping a near-constant 100 degrees or better most of this summer, I have been largely staying indoors, reading some of the latest books the local library has received.
I just finished "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan, a horror-thriller about the last of the werewolves and his attempts to thwart the hunter who wishes to kill him for two reasons: he's the last of his kind, and he slew and ate hunter Grainer's father years before. Complicating things are a cartel of vampires, who want the last of the werewolves for their own nefarious reasons.
Very fast-paced and well-written, this is one of those books you'll want to read all the way through in one day and night (and then make sure the doors are locked and the windows aren't open). This is a book not for the squeamish. Duncan does for werewolves what Anne Rice did for vampires. I understand this is the first in a planned trilogy.
Earlier I roller-coastered through Steve Berry's latest thriller, "The Jefferson Key," a tale revolving around modern-day pirates keeping up the code of the sea as they seek to find some missing pages from the Congressional Record that would give them carte blanche to continue their corsairing ways unimpeded by presidential interference such as that proferred by Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and John Kennedy among others. These pirates hold true to their old ways, including various tortures designed to torment traitors and prisoners alike. Berry's hero Cotton Malone must find a way to foil their plan and stop them before it's too late for their prisoners. I admire Berry's way of making each chapter succinct and taut, as surprise after surprise happens in the story and danger looms ever more menacingly.
