'Return of the Werewolf' – Guy N. Smith (New English Library)


I'll be completely honest, I pick up Guy N. Smith books wherever I can find them so wasn't really aware that the werewolf had gone away in the first place, let alone come back again... ;o) The title never lies though and despite having never read the first book, I grabbed 'Return' as soon as I saw it (on eBay I think... yep, on eBay). And then I totally forgot all about it because damn there are too many piles of books at my place and I can't be expected to keep track of all my book buying, can I? I can...? Oh, anyway...

'Return of the Werewolf' is only a tiny little book (a mere one hundred and ten pages long, a slip of a thing in fact) so this will be a quick post. Just to let you know though... The blurb has a pretty big spoiler, if you haven't already read 'Werewolf by Moonlight', so you might want to skip the next paragraph. You've been warned... ;o)

The Black Hill werewolf, Philip Owen, has been dead for a year, and there have been no further outrages. Until now, that is, and the new maulings coincide with the disappearance from his grave of Philip Owen's body. Gordon Hall, the man who caught Owen a year before, returns to the Black Hill to help with the search, and when Owen's body is found, he realises that there is a new werewolf loose. But who is it though? It could literally be anyone in the village and the nights are drawing in...

So 'Werewolf by Moonlight' is apparently horribly difficult to get hold of, in paperback, so you're up against it if you don't have a Kindle. The good news though, at least from where I'm sat, is that you don't have to have read 'Werewolf by Moonlight' in order to get the most out of 'Return of the Werewolf'. There isn't a lot of room to manoeuvre, within the tight page count, so Smith does very well to get his readers all caught up with the minimum of fuss and bother. I've never read 'Werewolf by Moonlight' but I was no worse of for it and I'd wager that you'd be the same if you give the book a go.

And I think you should give 'Return of the Werewolf' a go, I do. The mystery of the werewolf is an intriguing one as Smith delights in hiding clues in plain sight while leading his readers down blind alleys. The big reveal comes a little early (for me anyway) but it's still a good twist. And all the while, the werewolf is doing what it does best, scaring the hell out of the villages by leaving torn corpses (animal and human) strewn all over the Black Hill. A good mix of mystery and pulp horror then, along with a spot of 'closure sex' that leaves our hero... well, with no concern over his six months pregnant wife at all. It's good to see that some things never change ;o)

'Return of the Werewolf' doesn't hang around and is all the better a read for it. It has no pretensions of being anything other than it is, a murder mystery with a hint of the supernatural, and that means all you have to do is just sit there and enjoy it. And there is a lot to enjoy in this tale, I absolutely flew through it as I was pretty much desperate to see if my theory held up. It didn't but that was half the fun of it. I wouldn't normally say this about the second book in a series but I'd say that 'Return of the Werewolf' is as good a place to get into Guy N. Smith as 'Night of the Crabs'. Definitely pick it up if you come across a copy.

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