Matt McAvoy Book Review

“The Wyndham Werewolf” is a collection of intriguing bedtime tales from the mysterious Fallacious Rose, an excellent author, as it turns out, with a great tongue and use of grammar – the book is copy-edited to perfection.

The short stories, downbeat and downplayed, yet strangely entrancing, are told in a soft yet menacing style.  Although not so on the surface, there is a sense of common theme running through them, though this may simply be the tone underlying them all.  Set in a small Australian outback community, some focus on wild things that creep in the night, while others turn their attention to mortality, giving them a feeling of claustrophobia, and much more substantial than a small slice of melancholy - yet, despite the unspoken despair beneath the monologue, the sheer quality of Rose’s writing style wraps the reader in a big, cosy hug; this is the kind of book you want to read on a rainy night in front of a crackling log fire.

Despite its title, “The Wyndham Werewolf” doesn’t even really hint at horror, so much as perhaps one or two of the tales whispering about it in the distance – I like that: the genre ambiguity is interesting and welcome, leaving the reader to use a lot of their imagination; some of the recurring references are tantalizingly tenuous.

I tried to pick a favourite, but if I’m honest I liked most of them equally, though “A Hole in the Ground” gave me a nice little smile at the end, while the craftsmanship of “Skeleton in the Closet” is undeniable.

For ease of reading, it would have been nice to see a linked table of contents in the e-book.  But otherwise, this was a very enjoyable book – so enjoyable, in fact, the only disappointment was that at just 85 pages it left me wanting to read a lot more, and wishing it was twice the length; I will certainly be taking a look at Rose’s work in the future.

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