Little Wolves
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In this haunting blend of myth, reality, and prairie horror, the repercussions of a heinous murder echo through a small Minnesota town.
A modern classic of the Midwest, from Alex Award Winner Thomas Maltman.
“An ambitious mythic thriller that hums with energy and portent.” —Leif Enger, author of Virgil Wander
Southern Minnesota, 1980s. A drought season is pushing family farms to the brink in Lone Mountain when Seth Fallon, a teenage boy, murders the local sheriff and then shoots himself. In the wake of his son’s violent act, his father decides to look for answers. His search leads him to form an unlikely connection to Clara, his son’s teacher, who has recently returned to Lone Mountain for reasons of her own: to learn the truth behind the old myths and dark folklore she was raised on, which she suspects hold a devastating truth about her past, as well as the town itself.
Little Wolves is a penetrating look at small-town America from the award-winning author of The Night Birds as well as a powerful murder mystery woven with elements of folklore, Norse mythology, and horror.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Maltman follows his 2007 debut, The Night Birds, with this powerful novel set in 1987 Lone Mountain, Minn. When troubled teen Seth Fallon shoots and kills Sheriff Will Gunderson before committing suicide, Seth's widowed father, known as Grizz, struggles to understand his son's actions. Seth's substitute English teacher, Clara Warren, wife of the local Lutheran pastor, muses over the impending birth of her first child as she recalls the tales her father told her, all centered on an abandoned baby and the wolves who raised it. Seth came to see Clara, though she didn't answer the door, and she berates herself in hindsight for not preventing what came next. The town's strange custom of burying all suicide victims in a separate area angers Grizz as he tries to piece together Seth's life leading up to the shooting, while Clara becomes more obsessed in identifying her deceased mother, who may have once lived in Lone Mountain. Maltman skillfully evokes oppressive smalltown life and the far-reaching consequences of violence.
