Some of you might be familiar with the story of "Lobo", a real life legendary wolf from the past. This book is basically a fictionalized account of the events in his life. Spoilers ahead!
In New Mexico in the 1890's lives a legendary pack of cattle-killing wolves. They have been pursued for a long time by hunters and trappers, but have yet to be caught. They're led by the biggest wolf the West has ever seen: Lobo, King of the Currumpaw, and his mate Blanca. After many livestock killings, a price is put upon any wolf of Lobo's pack, but especially the King himself. The book now follows this goose chase from the point of view of both the wolves and the hunters.
If you know the real-life story of Lobo, as written by Seton in his book Wild Animals I Have Known, you know it has a tragic ending. After evading the trappers for a long time, Blanca is finally caught and killed. Lobo is trapped soon after and chained up by Seton, only to die of a broken heart over the loss of his mate soon after.
While the events in and of themselves are tragic, this book seems to lack a certain emotional core to such a sad story. I haven't read Seton's actual accounts, but based on how things were described here it didn't particularly draw me in or make me emotional. The characters, though based on real wolves and people, all felt rather cookie-cutter and not too interesting. I'd expected to at least care about Lobo, but honestly you kind of see him as a bit of an airhead after he keeps taunting the hunters, which eventually gets both him and his mate killed. His relationship with Blanca also didn't feel genuine at all, they just seemed to be mates because the plot said so. I didn't really feel any connection between the two characters.
The POV in this book would also randomly shift from wolf to human hunter and it wouldn't always be handled very well, so it'd end up feeling a bit jarring.
There's also some mistakes when it comes to wolf facts in this book. Blanca is described as having blue eyes (something real life wild wolves don't have), and the alpha-theory is used incorrectly, with ranks such as "beta" and "omega" being used, when these have long-since been disproven. This book was published in 2016, so there's no excuse as to why the author wouldn't use the right theory, as the alpha-theory the way it was used in this book was disproven in 1999.
While I liked the idea of telling Lobo's story from his POV, it just lacks in execution when it comes to the characters, wolf facts and emotion. That said, it is a really short read, so if you just want a quick book about wolves to read it's not terrible or anything. I'd just sooner recommend Wolf: The Journey Home by Asta Bowen, another fictionalized telling of a real wolf's tale, rather than this one.
Rating: 3/5
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