Quarrel with the Moon By J.C. Conaway

 

Quarrel with the Moon
By J.C. Conaway
1982 Tor Books
Paperback, 319 pages

 

What a pretentious fucking title for a werewolf novel! But despite a few overly florid passages, the prose doesn’t get too purple in this book and it’s really pretty darn good.

An anthropologist and his fashion model girlfriend (!) travel to the mountains of West Virginia, he to study some human-like bones found at a dig and she to try to rekindle their troubled relationship. But ol’ Josh, the anthropologist, grew up on that there mountain and it is a kind of homecoming for him as well. Naturally, their relationship doesn’t improve with all of his kin in the way, and his kin are weird, and a little deformed. ..and a little hairy. And then there are the bloody murders.

It should be noted that Josh and Cresta, the model, are both pretty shitty people and it’s hard to root for or feel bad for either of them. In fact, only Josh’s Aunt Avvie has a decent soul. But this is a horror novel, and we only want blood, guts and incestuous family relations, and there is plenty of that to go around.  It’s kind of a long book but it reads quickly and doesn’t get boring, even when the characters do incredibly dumb and frustrating things. There are plenty of twists and reveals along the way to keep you pleasantly satisfied.

                It’s pretty easy to guess some of what is going to happen, but Conaway (who seems to be primarily a romance author) keeps it moving at a good pace and writes well enough for you to admire the story’s construction and telling. And some of it gets batshit crazy, pushing this one into “recommended” territory.

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Claws By D. Gunther Wilde

 

Claws
By D. Gunther Wilde
1978 Leisure Books
Paperback, 173 pages

 

                OK, so this isn’t a well-written book by any means but that is not to say that it wasn’t worth my time. Y’see, I don’t care if the author is cleverly manipulating the English language and creating a work of art as well as a story. It helps, but I really read for the story. And this one is fun.

 

                New York City. The Big Apple. Fun City. There have been some odd deaths of late in some of the seediest sections of the city and cops can’t seem to figure out what is mutilating and partially eating the victims. Policewoman Darcy Ryan has taken an interest in the case, even though her superiors think a woman’s place is behind a desk. So, she gives the department a big fuck you and takes a few weeks off for vacation; a vacation spent tracking down the killer.

 

                So, that is one thing I enjoyed about the book. A strong woman main character. 1978 horror pulps weren’t exactly bulging at the seams with them, so this is a welcome surprise. Also, I love cats. The reader knows right away (from the cover, if nothing else) that cats are doing the maiming, but it is still rewarding to watch Darcy unravel the mystery. Much to my own amusement, I had a cat on either side of me while I was reading this book every night. Never once did I fear for my life.

 

                The non-ending is very abrupt, and nothing ever really says that the terror is over, but I had fun with this quick book while it lasted. It is said that D. Gunther Wilde is a pseudonym for Bernhardt J. Hurwood, a prolific author of soft erotica and ghost stories. I have a number of books edited by him in my anthology horror collection. He also wrote the Man from T.O.M.C.A.T. books for Arrow in the Sixties as Mallory T. Knight. A well-rounded individual, I say.

                This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #10, Spring, 2023

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