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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A NetGalley Arc Review:
An unexpectedly pleasant read. I was initially skeptical when learning that the story was going to revolve heavily around Natzi's being prevalent in the story. Yet the more I read, the more I got the message.
The story revolves more around social behavior and manipulation that a person can face. Uwe is the center of the story with small inclusions of his wife's POV to fully indulge the reader about Uwe's character. The story had the classic telling of werewolves with loving nods to the Grimm Brothers and how truly dark their stories actually were.
Overall, I would recommend this book if someone wanted a good short story.
0a very clean short story discussing the darker animalistic side of man (under the guise of being a protector) against a 1940s rural germany backdrop. it’s a well written mix of the historical and supernatural
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