Bad Moon Rising

In a world in which wolves and bears turn human and back again, and demonic monsters seek their deaths, can a furry young couple find love? As in ROMEO AND JULIET, the families oppose the union of Fang the werewolf and Aimee the werebear, but they're determined to defy the adults. It's impressive how quickly narrator Holter Graham accepts the strange world of this novel. Kenyon's writing is so strong that there's no room for disbelief. Much of the credit goes to Graham. When he delivers the accounts of wolves turning into people, it all sounds perfectly reasonable. Sound effects are unnecessary to make the fights ring true--Graham's voice is enough. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Starred review from August 15, 2011
Social turmoil overshadows the sleuthing in Gorman’s excellent ninth Sam McCain mystery (after 2009’s A Ticket to Ride). In 1968, a hippie commune near Black River Falls, Iowa, both horrifies and entices the townsfolk with its uninhibited lifestyle. Sardonic lawyer and investigator McCain becomes involved after the discovery of the body of Vanessa Mainwaring, the teenage daughter of a well-to-do local, at the commune, and a Vietnam vet who’s one of its members flees. Interference by a bigoted sheriff, an opportunistic preacher, and a hysterical father makes matters even worse as Sam tries not just to solve the murder but to help the people around him caught in an intensely stressful situation. The real crime, as Sam eventually realizes, is how one generation exploits the next—while the younger generation devours itself. In turn mellow and melancholy, this book grapples with problems that are too complex for any detective to untangle.