"Werewolf Cop" is Here

My new novel Werewolf Cop is out. I hope you’ll get a copy. I’ll discuss the writing of it a bit below, but here are some early reactions:

“A modern masterpiece of hardboiled horror, featuring a hero who feels like he stepped out of a Raymond Chandler novel as he confronts a dilemma that recalls the best of Stephen King–and the whole thing set to a moral sensibility that has become too rare in literature.”— John J. Miller, author of The First Assassin.

“Moves like a freight train–a classic white-knuckled police procedural with the chills of a midnight horror movie, and the best kind of old-fashioned hero at the center.  I loved it.”—Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of Suspicion and Paranoia.

“Be warned: this book is loaded with provocations. The French have Michel Houellebecq; here in the US of A, we have Andrew Klavan. Werewolf Cop is his bestbook yet, one that starts with a rush and never lets up, dark and funny, with the bittersweet taste of the knowledge of good and evil.”— John Wilson, Books and Culture

“Grabs the reader by the throat and doesn’t let go until the very end. The writing is crisp and descriptive. Straight-arrow Zach Adams has his flaws and moments of doubt. The other characters are also fully-rounded. This good read will send shivers up your spine.”— AuthorLink.com.

“Literally a read-in-one sitting thriller… One of Klavan’s strongest novels in years, and easily one of his best.” Bookshots.

The reactions are gratifying because I wrote this book entirely for myself. I wasn’t even going to seek a publisher for it, just e-publish it on my own. That way, I figured, I could do anything I wanted to do, say anything I wanted to say without some publisher telling me I was being too provocative or off-beat. The problem is: about half way through the writing, I realized I was producing one of the best books I’d ever written and something unique. I knew it would need intelligent reviews if it was ever going to get to the public. E-books just don’t get reviewed the way published books do. I’m thrilled Pegasus had the courage to bring it out in hard covers.

As for the title…  well, some people hate it. It was meant to be at once ironic and to demonstrate my commitment to the genre. A lot of times, you’ll hear a reviewer say a crime or horror novel, “Transcended the genre.” To me, this almost always means, it doesn’t fulfill the needs of the genre. That is:  Literary thrillers are rarely thrilling, literary horror rarely horrifying.

I wanted to do something different: to write a novel that gives you all the depth of a literary novel while giving you the action and thrills of great genre writing. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein did it. Why should we think it can’t be done?

The early reactions in the press and on Amazon seem to suggest I got at least something of what I wanted. In spite of the title — or maybe because of the title — I hope you’ll take a look.