Title: THE WEHRWOLF – A SHORT STORY
Author: ALMA KATSU
Release Date: SEPTEMBER 27, 2022
Genre: FICTION, HORROR, HISTORICAL FICTION
Publisher: AMAZON ORIGINAL STORIES
Received From: NETGALLEY
ISBN: 978-1-662507656
Rating: 5 OUT OF 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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DESCRIPTION:
Alma Katsu, the visionary author of The Fervor, The Hunger, and The Deep, brings readers a terrifying short story about monsters among men—and the thin lines that divide them.
Germany, 1945. In the waning days of World War II, the Nazis have been all but defeated. Uwe Fuchs, never a fighter, feels fortunate to have avoided the front lines as he cared for his widowed mother.
But Uwe’s fortune changes when Hans Sauer, the village bully, recruits him to join a guerilla resistance unit preparing for the arrival of Allied soldiers. At first, Uwe is wary. The war is lost, and rumor has it that Hans is a deserter. But Hans entices him with talk of power, brutality, and their village’s ancestral lore: werewolves.
With some reluctance, Uwe joins up with the pack and soon witnesses their startling transformation. But when the men’s violent rampage against enemy soldiers takes a devastatingly personal turn, Uwe must grapple not only with his role in their evil acts but with his own humanity. Can he reclaim what this group of predatory men has stolen from him?
Or has he been a monster all along?
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MY REVIEW:
“The Wehrwolf” by Alma Katsu is a definite Must Read for Fall 2022.
Do not let the title dissuade you from reading this novella. I guarantee it is unlike any werewolf tale you have previously read.
Alma Katsu chose to set the story in Germany just as WWII was coming to an end.Choosing this moment in world history as the setting of her tale was nothing less than inspired.
I have rarely encountered books that focus on the lives of ordinary German citizens at that moment in time, most of whom had no say in what the country’s government had chosen to do and wanted no part in the hate and the genocides.
The main character is Uwe Fuchs – a simple man, a good man. A man who loves his family above all else. The question is not what he will do to keep his family safe, but what won’t he do? I think we can all relate to that.
The Wehrwolf held me rapt. Once begun, this tale is impossible to put down.
The characters are so real that you will find yourself wondering if somehow the author went back in time to observe them firsthand.
Alma Katsu’s previous career working for the CIA and the NSA has given her a perspective that us mortals could never comprehend. She knows evil and she knows people – their motivations, their fears, their very souls. She probably knows people better than they know themselves. It is this intense knowledge that kept me riveted by her story.
The Wehrwolf is very much worthy of 5 out of 5 Stars. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
*** Thank you to #NetGalley for providing me with a free advance copy of this book. ***
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Alma Katsu (born 1959) is an American writer of adult fiction. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages, and has been published in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Spain and Italy
Katsu was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, the daughter of an American-born father and a Japanese-born mother. She spent the majority of her youth living near Concord, Massachusetts, to which she attributes her interest in the early American history featured in her novels.[9] She attended Brandeis University (BA in literature and writing, 1981) where she studied with novelist John Irving and children’s book author Margaret Rey, and the Johns Hopkins University (MA in Fiction, 2004).
FROM THE OZY INTERVIEW ARTICLE:
https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/my-eyes-dont-lie-a-navy-corpsmans-south-of-the-border-adventure/223656/
“Alma Katsu spent more than three decades witnessing horror. It was part of her job: Katsu spent 25 years at the National Security Agency and eight years at the CIA. She still works as a consultant for the government, “but that’s all I can say,” she tells me with a little chuckle, taking a sip of Orangina. I want her to follow that up with “or I’ll have to kill you,” but that’s too Hollywood. Plus, I don’t want to offend a woman who spent decades clandestinely planning missions to protect our country — which left her with bouts of PTSD and a neurological disorder. We’re at a French bistro in suburban D.C. far from where she was born, in Alaska, but close to where she spent her career after growing up “on the wrong side of the tracks” in Massachusetts, near Lexington and Concord.”
“Katsu, 59, knows evil. In the 1990s, she ran “complex contingency operations” to stomp out mass atrocities around the globe. She’s used that knowledge to launch her second career as a popular horror writer.”
“I don’t think the book is super frightening,” says Katsu of her latest, The Hunger, which was named one of the best horror novels of 2018 by NPR, The New York Times and others, and earned front-cover kudos from Stephen King, the American icon of horror and suspense.”
“The Horror Writers Association defines horror not as a genre but as a feeling of dread and terror. And The Hunger, historical fiction based on the 1846 expedition known as the Donner Party, is just that. Katsu twists an overlay of the supernatural into the true-story tale of cannibalism. She says her book asks: “Under what circumstances could you be turned into a monster?”
“It’s not the monsters that are scary in this book; it’s the evil in man,” says her editor, Sally Kim of Putnam. “When I first signed up the book … I loved the idea of it and her writing,” says Kim, who is also Katsu’s editor on The Deep, historical horror fiction based on the Titanic out in March 2020.”
To learn more about this author visit the following links:
OFFICIAL WEBSITE
https://www.almakatsubooks.com
ALMA KATSU’S DAMNED HISTORY PODCAST
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Link to special edition of THE HUNGER
SPECIAL EDITION DETAILS:
* Signed Limited Hardcover Edition:
* Limited to only 500 signed and hand-numbered copies
* Personally signed by Alma Katsu on a specially designed full-colour illustrated signature page
* Larger 6.14” x 9.21” trim size
* Printed on a heavier 100gsm acid-free paper
*Bound in premium cloth with coloured head and tail bands
* Hot foil stamping on the front boards and spine
* Offset printed and bound with full-colour endpapers
* Sewn binding for increased durability
* Stunning dust jacket artwork and interior illustrations by Francois Vaillancourt
https://sstpublications.co.uk/the-hunger.html
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Watch the video of the event HERE.
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/alma-katsu-in
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Contact Alma Katsu:
Publicity:
Please contact Katie Grinch
Tel: 212-366-2574 | kgrinch@penguinrandomhouse.com
Literary Management:
Please contact Richard Pine
Tel: 212-922-3500 | Inkwell Management
Film Rights
Please contact Angela Cheng Caplan
(Sera)Tel: 310-391-8898 | assistant@chengcaplanco.com
Book Clubs
Alma loves talking to book clubs via Skype!
Email her at almakatsubooks2@gmail.com
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