I've been reading Robert R. McCammon for years now and he's delivered some of the creepiest horror and most wonderful fantasy I've ever read. Right now I'm working my way through his complete works in publishing order and after reading his 1989 novel The Wolf's Hour, I knew that I had to share this book with as many people as I could.

The novel, at it's core, is a World War II espionage story wherein an Allied agent must travel across Germany to discover what the Axis has planned to counter D Day. The agent is clever, passionate, dangerous, and a werewolf. The novel works a lot like Richard Mathesons "The Incredible Shrinking Man" in that it switches back and forth from the current conflict to the characters history, showing us how he got in this predicament in the first place.

The hero of the novel, Michael Gallatin, is a British citizen who originally emigrated from Russia. The story of how he became a werewolf fills about half of the novel and the mission to figure out what the German plan code-named "Iron Fist" fills the rest. The book is filled with action, almost to an Indiana Jones level, But I will say the the violence and sex is described explicitly enough that I might not recommond it for kids. The pacing of the book is incredible. Although the book is a thicker one, it was a quick and action-paced read.

The novel feels a lot like some of the bigger Hellboy stories, in that villains are doing some sort of giant plan and our hero has to do everything he can to stop it, after all, the world is depending on him. Some of the violence is extreme, but usually the more gruesome things happen to the more terrible people in the novel, so it feels justified.

I started reading Robert McCammon ages ago with his novel "Swan Song," an end-of-the-world book that rates as one of my favourites to this day. A lot of his earlier fiction is horror, but this book comes across more as adventure, and I loved that fact that although the hero is a literal monster, the villains (Nazis) are shown to be so monstrous that they definitely deserve what's coming to them.

Hands down,The Wolf's Hour is the best werewolf novel I've ever read. Arguably, it's the best werewolf novel ever written. I confess. When I read this book, I fell head over heels in love with Michael Gallatin. What a hunk of man! So what if he gets a little furry when he's excited? The flashbacks help illuminate his nature, his character, his soul, and his ultimate aloneness.

And it's a great action novel to boot! ( )

There was a fad in the 1980s to take a horror theme, and refit it for a more general thriller. Robert McCammon did this very well in "Wolf's Hour" where a werewolf works as an undercover British agen fighting the Nazis. The plot is well developed, as are the characters, an it is written well enough that it is easy to get wrapped up in the story and totally forget how preposteros it is. Good fun. ( )

It’s a good, honest, adventure book. Lot of action (daring escapes, fights, weapons, and alike) and a hero quite attractive, at the same time a noble warrior and a conflicted being. The supernatural is worked quite well, but it’s actually nothing else if another weapon against the bad ones.

Michael’s background (his childhood and how he became a werewolf) is told during chapters-flashback. At first, I thought the thing was a little boring, because it cut the action, but then some of the more touching scenes happen just in those chapters.
A nice reading but without great emotions. The scheme is a bit too plain for my tastes: the hero puts himself in more and more big danger, obviously he’s fated to get out of trouble, but he’s a man, not a super-hero, so his companions have a dangerous tendency to fall like flies (oh, sorry, he’s a werewolf!! But this type of were hasn’t got big powers over the skill of turning big-strong-wolf). ( )

Pretty melodramatic. I remember reading this the first time and being fascinated with the history of the werewolves in Russia. McCammon never reveals fully how Gallatinov got out. We see the entire pack killed and his escape, but not his assimilation into human existence. Anyway, he’s here and it’s a damn good thing. Pretty good for a pulp writer to make me care about the fate of his characters. I felt sorrow and outrage where I was supposed to. The brutality of the Brimstone Club was almost too much, I had to pause and put the book down. I don’t know if I did last time, being caught up in the plot, but this time I did. McCammon’s flow is good. He stays in one time-frame long enough for you to get absorbed and forget the scenario in the forest and vise-versa. Funny, how he creates an elder werewolf with no answers to give about the history of the species. I guess a novel can sell even if it’s got a mild case of writers block. ( )