Links: Author's Website / Show Official Info /

Charles is the Marrok's enforcer. When he was sent to Chicago to deal with the pack's Alpha, he didn't know he'd find his mate, a rare Omega, and a pack whose leader had allowed the pack to be milked for money, tortured for entertainment, and cowed into submission. Appointing a new leader, Charles brings Anna Latham to Montana, hoping to convince her of his love. What he doesn't know is that an old vengeance is about to resurface and that the Marrok will have to face his past and survive. If Anna cannot cope with her powers, all the werewolves in North America could become pawns for a new power.

Cry Wolf is set in the world of Mercy Thompson novels, and share some of the same characters. While telling the story of Anna and Charles, we learn more about the Marrok, Bran Cornick, and the werewolf pack structure.

Anna is the central character as well as our viewpoint, though that alternates with Charles. Charles, we've met in the Mercy Thompson books where he was one of the secondary characters. Charles needs to get Anna to trust him. Anna was turned in a violent attack at the direction of the Chicago pack leader, Leo. After she turned, Leo proceeded to have her regularly and publicly tortured and debased by pack members. So, trust doesn't come easily. She also doesn't know much of pack life as Leo cut his members off from anyone that could tell them what other packs were like.

In many ways, this is a quieter book. Yes, there's plenty of action but the action is almost incidental to the quest to regain self-esteem and honor. Anna is not the only person who has suffered cruelly at the hands of those whom they should have been able to trust. As the characters work through their problems and deal with the assault on the community, healing begins for all.

The ending is very satisfactory and yet there is certainly plenty of material to mine in later books, in this universe, and with these characters. Anna is not Mercy in a new shell. She's a woman of her times. Throughout you can see the glimpses of the person she would have been if she hadn't been changed. The wonder is that she's survived her past. And, we hope she'll survive her new future.

Recommended.