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In eastern California, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a beast stalks the inhabitants of Lakeside Assembly Center, taking innocent victims to feed on while he waits to pass on his treacherous disease to his chosen one. As a man, he’s not aware of his nocturnal habits during the full moon, and as a werewolf, he has no memory of being a man.
They call Doris Tebbe the Iron Lady because she runs the center as tough and smart as any man, but all she really wants is to do her job and get the Japanese-Americans processed for Internment camp with as little trouble as possible. If anything goes wrong, she’ll be removed from her post, simply because she’s a woman in a time when women got very little respect in a man’s world. Higher authority expects her to mess up.
Maxwell Pierce arrives to command Lakeside Assembly Center, and though he and Doris disagree on many things, they agree on the direction and purpose of the center. But Maxwell has a secret he’s desperately trying to hide. He has seizures, blackouts, and bizarre dreams of blood and violence, which become increasingly difficult to hide with the rise of the full moon.
People start disappearing, and though there are reports of a huge beast dragging its victims into the forest, authorities still look for a human or perhaps more than one person. The fate of the camp and Maxwell’s life lies in the hands of David Alma Curar, a Navajo healer who knows what must be done—but it may, in the end, cost all of them their lives.
Ms. Nappier knows how to drive her readers to the edge of a cliff and keep them dangling in suspense. Full Wolf Moon drove me to the edge so many times that I think I actually did bite my nails while agonizing over what the outcome of a scene might be. Ms. Nappier is a just-one-more-chapter-before-lights-out author. Trust me; you’ll say that many times before you force yourself to get some sleep.
I rarely ever come across a werewolf novel that allows me to suspend my belief enough to believe the story is plausible, but Ms. Nappier managed to do it here. The beast remained a beast, as if it were an actual wild animal stalking its prey—even though I knew somewhere in the beast lurked a man.
The next time I hear a howl on a moonlit night, a shiver will race down my spine, and I’ll wonder…
Ed. Note: To download a copy of Full Wolf Moon, visit Double Dragon Ebooks.
