wow. Jack Caffery is my new favorite flawed character. I sense a Mo Hayder binge coming on! ( )

Wolf by Mo Hayder was just fantastic. An enjoyable and fiendish mystery to solve, while we try to figure out what makes Jack Caffery tick. The writing moves us right along, and the forays into the psychological motivations of the characters are just as captivating as the action scenes. I strongly recommend and I will most definitely be reading her other books. ( )

The last Jack Caffery book written in 2014 and since then not a word has been heard from the author? There are certain trends that run through this series that add a little sparkle the first being the walking man. A type of reclusive wealthy vagrant, permanently moving around the lowlands of Somerset, and in Wolf he befriends a small dog with the words “help us” around his collar. Caffery becomes involved but only if in return the walking man can help trace his younger brother Ewan who vanished aged 9 never to be seen again. The other rather odd feature is the appearance yet again of human entrails which Mz Hayder appears to have a fixation with. A wealthy scientist, his wife and daughter are being held hostage the motive behind the kidnapping is unclear but may have a connection to the production of a smart torpedo able to seek out and destroy with precise accuracy. A somewhat disappointing read, the series looking a little tired and certainly lacking the sparkle that police diver Flea Marley contributed to earlier books…..Come back Mo and revive Jack and Flea! ( )

Mo Hayder has done it again. She never fails to astound me with a tale that is both sharply crafted and breathlessly astounding. Hayder is one of my favorite authors, but I haven’t read all of her books. Instead of the instant gratification of consuming everything she has ever written, I dole out her works sparingly, as a special treat.

Hayder is the mistress of brutal story lines. She unflinchingly confronts the darkest nightmares of humanity. And I love her for it.

But she is more than just a shock jock. Her prose is beautifully crafted. Her characters’ lives extend beyond the pages. She is a master craftsman, a writer one can learn from, no matter what genre they spin. Hayder has a supreme ability to convey setting. Each silken thread of the spider’s web you find yourself in has been spun with a loving touch. Without her uncanny ability to create setting and atmosphere with such precision that her words practically surround you with a hologram illusion in the room you’re reading in, her stories wouldn’t have such the powerful effect that they have. 5 stars! ( )

Wolf is the 7th book in the Jack Caffery and as of 2020, the latest as well, written in 2014 with Hayder seeming to have taken an break from writing.

Whilst I'm pleased to say this was on par with, and a little better than Poppet, and much better than Ritual/Skin & Gone but still not up to the excellent standard that the series began with in Birdman & The Treatment.

Overall, it's a decent book, there's enough background there that you could easily read it as a stand alone book if desired without missing out on much, you might even enjoy it more if you haven't read Birdman & The Treatment as you won't know what you're missing out on in terms of the horroresque themes they had.

There's a pretty big twist towards the end of this one that reframes a lot of the earlier events in a more sinister light and it does make for an enjoyable read. ( )