Samhain Publishing

North Woods Noir

The Nick Lupo Thrillers by W.D. Gagliani

Wolf's Edge (#4) is now available; Wolf's Trap (#1) will be reissued this spring

Sometimes the setting is all-important in horror. Sometimes it's important enough that it becomes a character in your novel. Think of your favorite movies, horror or otherwise. Think of the most successful movies. It's those with a strong sense of place that become memorable. Taxi Driver wouldn't work set in Miami. Deliverance wouldn't work set in California (well, maybe it would…). Though movies are visual and books have to be visualized, they are similar in how the setting can shape the story. If the author skimps on details, whether real or fabricated, the book is less likely to succeed in engaging the reader. This is why Stephen King has connected so well with readers of all kinds – besides being a master of internal monologue and dialogue, he has always communicated a tremendous sense of place in his books. We all feel we know Maine a little better because of his stories set there.

When writing my first novel, Wolf's Trap (to be re-released this spring by Samhain), my strongest inspiration came from my vacationing in Wisconsin's North Woods. Sprawling evergreen forests dotted by lakes and narrow rivers and channels, known for their natural beauty and outdoor recreational opportunities, the North Woods blankets a large portion of northern Wisconsin. Driving north from the more populous south, you can spot the change – the line where the deciduous tree majority becomes the minority and evergreens take over, mostly pines. More than just a different look, there's a different feel. A different air about it. Lovely, quiet, relatively unspoiled (despite human efforts to the contrary), the very atmosphere feels different the farther north you go. Ranks of pines line the roads, stands of dark forests surround long finger lakes that often flow one into the other. Yes, ski-boats and overfishing are starting to take their toll, but generally the area still qualifies for "getting away from it all" vacations, especially when your destination is nestled in a quiet wooded area fronting a channel between two scenic lakes, part of a chain of lakes that stretches for mile after beautiful mile.

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A Thriller with Bite

 By W.D. Gagliani

Wolf's Edge is the fourth book to feature Milwaukee homicide detective Dominic "Nick" Lupo, after the previous novels, Wolf's Trap, Wolf's Gambit, and Wolf's Bluff. The series began with Wolf’s Trap (a Bram Stoker Award nominee in 2004), and the new book continues to tell parallel past and present stories about Detective Lupo. I'm not giving much away if I tell you that Nick Lupo is a werewolf, trying like mad to make his lycanthropy pay off in his police work – and most often failing miserably. Yes, I've taken some smarmy criticism for his name. After all, Lupo is Italian for "wolf." But there's a long-standing tradition of naming literary characters for their traits or their destiny, and I wanted the same aura around Nick – a tragic persona whose best is often still not good enough, someone for whom Fate tends toward unkindness. Occasionally it's his own decisions that cause him the most trouble, reflecting how we can all be our own worst enemies. But I loved making the "monster" the good guy, the hero, however flawed he might be.

Wolf’s Trap told the stories, alternately, of Lupo’s infection and, in the present, of his epic struggle against a revenge-driven serial killer who knew his dark, unbelievable secret. Look for a whole lot of duality throughout the plot and the characters, as almost everyone has at least two facets. (Samhain will re-release Wolf's Trapin mid-2012.) In Wolf’s Gambit Lupo learned he wasn't the only werewolf when three mercenaries came to Eagle River, WI, hired by a local serial killer to aid in his quest to keep his world safe for the foreseeable future by stalling a tribal casino project. The mercenaries soon proved bloodthirstier than usual because they were a pack of werewolves, employees of Wolfpaw Security, a Blackwater-like private contractor, and fresh from happy carnage in  Iraq. Of course, Wolfpaw turned out to have more than a few werewolves in its ranks – and also a history reaching back to World War 2, and perhaps farther. Wolf’s Bluff raised the stakes, as Wolfpaw seemingly turned its attention toward a thorn in their side, Nick Lupo – from their perspective a renegade werewolf. Meanwhile, Lupo also had to deal with a dogged Internal Affairs investigator obsessed with nailing him for corruption. Lupo's fate also involved three beautiful women – his long-suffering girlfriend, his sexy suspect, and a beautiful cop. Since the werewolf gene increases both bloodlust and libido, you can imagine that things got quite heated in this one!

Wolf’s Edge (Samhain Publishing, October 2011 & January 2012) is out this week in trade paperback, and is the third installment of the loose Wolfpaw Trilogy. In this novel, our messed-up hero finally comes face to face with the corporate-werewolf foe whose grandiose plans are more in line with those of a Bond super-villain. While writing Wolf's Edge I found myself reaching farther back for the parallel story. Instead of (again) mining some of my own and observed memories of childhood and high school angst, I remembered the vivid stories my immigrant parents told of their turbulent youth in war-torn Italy. And the seeds I had sown in Wolf’s Gambit bore unexpectedly bitter fruit as I took the story back to include not only Lupo’s father as a child, but his grandfather, who had battled Nazi werewolves as a partisan in the northern Italian hills above the seaport of Genova after the Italian capitulation in late 1943. Overnight, Italy’s German allies became occupiers who fought a bloody rearguard action against the Allied invasion through Sicily. Italian cities and ports were desirable targets for Allied bombing runs, softening the invaders' route to Germany's underbelly.

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