Kiss of the Wolf

Anne Gendler

This is a spare, modern tale with realistic characters and a suspenseful plot that turns on a single fateful incident. Joanie, a third-generation Italian Catholic whose husband abruptly left her, is driving her son, Todd, home from his confirmation party at her parents' house. She has the radio cranked up high and is speeding when out of nowhere a man appears in the road before them. They hit him. Joanie gets out to investigate and finds that the man is dead. She then acts indecisively: leaving the scene of the crime, circling back, heading home, picking up the phone to call the police, and hanging up again. Her moral evasiveness puts Todd into a state of anguish and estranges him from his mother, as well as turning the two of them into complicit partners with a deadly secret--and one that has the power to kill again. Eleven-year-old Todd, Joanie, Joanie's mother, and Joanie's long-time admirer Bruno alternate with a third-person narrator to tell the story, which is at once morbid and gripping.

Kirkus Reviews

Tense, heartbreaking family drama with an underworld angle—for his fourth novel, Shepard returns to the world of Flights (1983): Italian-Americans in small-town Connecticut. Joanie Muhlberg is a good woman who makes bad choices, choices like Gary Muhlberg and Bruno Minea. Husband Gary has just left her and 11-year-old Todd, gone out west, no warning signs, and Joanie is all shaken up. Now Bruno, who's been stuck on her since Catholic school more than 20 years ago, is making his move, and Joanie is encouraging him. If Gary was a "washout," Bruno is really bad news. A car salesman, he has clawed his way up from the bottom; his philosophy is don't get mad, get even. Gary, Bruno: bad choices. But the doozy comes when Joanie, driving too fast at night with Todd, knocks a guy down and then, panicking, leaves the scene, a hit-and-run. Altar boy Todd is deeply shocked by his mom's behavior and subsequent coverup; their rift is the heart of the novel. But guilt-ridden Joanie must deal with more than her alienated son. The dead man was a small-time hood, involved in a racket with Bruno, and some money is missing from the crime scene. Bruno, guessing Joanie was the driver, becomes convinced she's stolen it; the woman of his dreams is playing him for a sucker and must be punished. As the angel of death draws close, Shepard takes the suspense right down to the wire: the final paragraph is a knockout. Joanie, her fretful mother Nina, and the tormented Todd are all caught in the klieg lights of their demanding religion, leaving Bruno in outer darkness; meanwhile, the action is grounded in gritty dialogue faithful to every intonation. Grab this one.