Missing Persons and Murderers

Wolf by Mo Hayder

Written by Ryan Politis

A dog with the words ‘help us’ on her collar, a family trapped in their own home, and a detective to figure it all out.  The novel follows the Anchor-Ferrers family and detective Jack Caffery.  The novel starts in the perspective of a young girl to set up the plot of the novel.  The young girl finds a dog with a piece of paper secured to the collar.  Although the rest of the message is smudged and unreadable, two words can be made out.  Help us.  A strange man takes the dog from the young girl and the story then shifts to the perspective of the Anchor-Ferrers.  The family lives in an isolated hilltop mansion called the “Turrets.”  Oliver, the father, recently had his heart replaced with a pig’s to keep him alive.  It seems that all is going well when intestines are found strung up in the trees.  The family is reminded of a traumatic event when the serial killer Minnet Kable murdered Lucia’s, the daughter, former boyfriend and his new girlfriend.  Their intestines were strung up in a similar way.  Two detectives arrive at the Turrets and are seemingly there to help.  While this is happening, Jack Caffery is unwillingly attending the remembrance of a woman’s daughter.  Having to play chauffeur for the woman, Caffery is disgruntled.  After leaving her at the side of the road, Caffery resumes his search for the fate of his missing brother.

The first chapter really hooks you into the rising action of the story.  The young girl revealing the message that was on the tag shows you where the novel is headed, “It was all torn and the letters were all smudged...except for those letters.  Help us” (Hayder 15).  Someone is trapped and used a dog with a message which is unfortunately too smudged.  After that first chapter, the book slows down a fair bit.  The novel picks up the pace in the next few chapters when the family is trapped in their own home.  I’m interested in finding out the fate of the Anchor-Ferrers and how Caffery figures out what happened to his brother.  

The novel covers themes of murder, pedophilia, and other messed up things.  Some readers might be sensitive to these topics and might not want to read the book because of that.  The murder of Hugo, the ex-boyfriend, is pretty gruesome,” Kable’s final signature was to remove the intestines of both teenagers.  He twisted them together and used them to decorate the trees above the corpses in the shape of a heart” (Hayder 46).  The murder of Hugo and his new girlfriend are vividly described to distill a feeling of disgust.  The book also covers themes of children being kidnapped by convicted pedophiles, The walking man’s daughter is kidnapped, ”The same as your van, the one that Evans used to abduct your daughter” (Hayder 137).  If you aren’t comfortable reading about these topics then I wouldn’t recommend this book.  If you can get past the roller coaster ride that is the pacing of this novel then I would truly recommend this book.