David Case - Wolf Tracks

David Case - Wolf Tracks (Belmont, 1980)



Blurb:

Mysterious Manglings

Only a crazed beast could be responsible for the ghastly killings of innocent young women. Yet witnesses swore they had seen a strange man lurking about the premises. Detective Steve La Roche's investigations indicated only one possible explanation and it was too horrible to be true - a werewolf was stalking the streets of Toronto!

Just the briefest comment for now: Will see if i can hack out something more *ahem* substantial later.

"Both girls were blonde .... let's see, they were both sort of hippie types, I'd say."
That might well be more to the point. LaRoche nodded again.
"Both names .... Dawson and Drummond .... start with the letter D ...."
LaRoche Grinned. "You suppose he asked them their names? That coincidence, I think, would be too tenuous for Macmillan and Wife, Joe. Columbo would overlook that."

A maniac who may or may not be a bona fide loup garou shredding hippie girls; short, sharp chapters (I'm on page 146 and there have been forty so far) in the best pulp tradition; a hard-bitten, inscrutable detective with a slightly naive, eager to please and thoroughly decent sergeant (the aforementioned Joe Greene), neither of whom can quite bring themselves to utter the word "werewolf "; a pub - the White Rose - whose colourful clientele include nosy bartender Gus Tyson, boxer turned meat-packer Wash McCoy and Ike Clanton, a panhandler who lost his legs when a freight train ran over them and now gets around on a gigantic roller skate - how could I have failed to enjoy this when first I read it?

It has to be that Godawful cover.