Lone Wolf [Mass Market Paperback]

LONE WOLF is the third of Linwood Barclay's Zack Walker novels, a series that with each new entry has become incrementally darker and exponentially better. It sets a high-water mark, not only for Barclay professionally but also for the mystery genre. Informed with a quiet excellence of execution, LONE WOLF is one of the best written mystery novels of 2006, no mean feat in a year marked by the blessing of a plurality of wondrous, well-crafted works.

Zack Walker, Barclay's Everyman protagonist, is a reporter, a well-intended worrywart whose heroism is confined primarily to doing the right thing for his family at all times, as it should be. While this admirable quality is hardly the stuff of adventurous derring-do, it causes Walker to function, more often than not, as a foible for or an observer of the dangerous and the intriguing while remaining a fish out of water with respect to the proceedings. Indeed, as Sarah, Walker's long-suffering wife, reminds him near the end of LONE WOLF, "This isn't our life." Just so; this quality makes Walker an identifiable character with the great majority of the readership, even as he stumbles into mysteries and dangers both great and small.

LONE WOLF begins with Walker receiving the bad news that his father, the owner and year-long resident of a fishing camp, may have been eaten by a bear. Walker, with understanding trepidation, leaves for the site, feeling somewhat remorseful about his relationship with his father while dreading what he will find upon his arrival at journey's end. However, Walker discovers that there is much more, and less, going on at the camp than he had anticipated. When a second body is discovered, and a supply of fertilizer is stolen, it becomes apparent that the quiet, heretofore idyllic, setting of the fishing camp is about to be changed forever.

Walker erroneously appears to be a somewhat limited character who would require an improbable jump of the shark to keep things interesting. But in the course of three novels Barclay has managed to invoke a subtle change of background in each --- from urban to suburban to, in LONE WOLF, a rural setting that is extremely true to life. The backdrop and circumstances permit Walker to find out some things about his father, and about himself. They haven't been close, in part because they are so much alike. As Walker begins, with some reluctance, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the mysterious goings-on around the camp, once again he turns to Lawrence Jones, his quietly capable and engaging friend, for assistance --- and as LONE WOLF speeds toward its cataclysmic conclusion, Walker finds that he will need all the help he can get.

LONE WOLF has it all --- three mysteries for the price of one; engaging, believable characters; a compelling story; and an excerpt from STONE RAIN, the next Zack Walker novel. If this advance preview is any indication, 2007 will be an even better year for Barclay than 2006. For now, however, LONE WOLF gives us much to enjoy. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Linwood Barclay's third book featuring feature writer Zack Walker is unlike the first two in some ways. In Bad Move and Bad Guys the trouble that Zack unwittingly finds himself in is closer to home: his wife and children are threatened directly, and to an extent matters are exacerbated by Zack's tendency to worry over much about safety issues. In Lone Wolf Zack hightails it up to his father's fishing lodge upon hearing that a man has been mauled by a bear on his father's property. Once arrived, Zack finds himself compelled to stay for a few days and take care of his father's business. But that's all the time Zack needs to land in the customary hot water--though this time around Zack's tendency to worry excessively doesn't really come into play: the small town is riven by a controversy involving the participation of a gay and lesbian coalition in an upcoming parade; the Barney Fife-ish local sheriff is not up to the task of investigating a murder; and a family of Timothy McVeigh-worshipping wackos is renting a house from Zack's father. There are personal issues to deal with as well: this book may not be centered on Zack's wife and kids, but it is concerned with family. Happily, private eye Lawrence Jones, whom we first met in Bad Guys, sweeps into town in his shiny blue Jaguar to help Zack sort things out.

While different from Barclay's previous Zack Walker books, Lone Wolf is as compulsively readable as they are. It was interesting to see Zack's family history rounded out some: we learn here, for example, that Zack's tendency to act like a jerk when concerned about his family's welfare is an inherited trait. (Though it is hard to believe that his father's misbehavior mirrored his son's, or vice versa, quite so precisely.) Still, I'll be happy to see Zack back on his home turf again.

-- Debra Hamel

Although nothing major is given away in this one to ruin the two former novels in this series for you, a few minor happenings are so you should read them first. Plus you really need to read Bad Move to fully appreciate main character Zack Walker's personality.

Reader's have seen Zack in action in the suburbs (Bad Move), City (Bad Guys) and this time where in a rural fishing camp owner by Zack's father. Zack initially went there to identify his father's body as the incompetent Orville, a joke of a policeman didn't do the basics in ruling him out and just assumed as no guests were missing that he was a bear attack victim. Zack's therefore has no respect or faith in the local lawman and when he learns Orville is a complete coward as well, letting those he is questioning (who happen to be the tenants from hell on his dad's property) play piggy in the middle with his hat, he isn't too impressed. Zack's father has a broken ankle so Zack decides since he can't rely on the law, he better stick around to help out. While he's around he'll do something about the tenants too he thinks. However after meddling and getting them offside, Zack learns everyone in town is scared of them. Plus when Zack runs into his family's ex neighbour from his childhood days in his father's bathroom obviously having spent the night, Zack has some serious accusations in his mind involving why his now deceased mother walked out on the family years ago. Throw in small town bigotry about a couple of homosexuals wanting to march in the town's parade, a guest who wears adult diapers and wants to convert everyone else to do the same, the fact the tenants from hell have to vicious dogs and a photo of Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVey on the wall, and you know Zack's not just going to be spending his week sitting around fishing.

Third in the Zack Walker series, Lone wolf although still a very enjoyable read, just doesn't have that masterpiece standard and can't put down factor that Zack's introduction to us novel, Bad Move had. Zack doesn't do the paranoid parent stuff at all in this one (probably due to the fact that his family members only have brief cameos at the start and end). His cotton wool parent extremetism and lessons were what made him a unique character in Bad Move, we saw that factor lessen dramatically with Bad Guys and it's not evident at all here (although he does tell a story involving his father and the handbrake of his mother's car that indicates where he may have developed this outlook on life).

If you haven't already done so also check out his brilliant stand alone storylines written in the style of Harlan Coben stand alone novels such as No Time for Goodbye and Too Close to Home.

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