unique in its genre (dark thriller), written with crystal clear sentences, following a Tarantino like string of violent events that seem unconnected and do not always make sense, until one arrives at a spell-binding, harmonious ending.

The story opens with a mystery – three kids in a remote village in Alaska have been brutally killed by hungry wolves. The mother of the third child approaches a wolf expert (Core), whose life is at a dead end – wife paralysed on her death bed, daughter estranged living her own life in far-away Alaska. It is initially not clear to Core what the bereft mother Medora wants: the bones of her son? Core guesses she wants a tooth for a tooth and promises to hunt down the pack of wolves responsible for this killing spree, also for Medora to have something to show to her husband when he returns from his war in the desert. Soon enough Core locates the pack of hungry wolves, but he fails to kill one of them. He returns to the cabin in the remote Alaskan village, only to discover the body of the boy in the basement, and Medora gone. This leads to some fruitless investigation jointly with a local Police Officer, Marium. Then the husband returns and a killing spree starts. Marium and Core join hands chasing both Medora and Slone (her husband). Will they succeed in locating the mother before she is supposedly killed by her irate husband? Lots of snow, cold, shamanic characters, wolves and four wheel cars ahead… and killings galore.

One reviewer called this novel masculine in the extreme – wild, evil, dark, violent, driven by primal emotions. Yet it was a refreshing read after finishing a novel without any male characters (Matrix by Lauren Groff). For a novel in the snow-clad expanses of Alaska, there is a lot of sharp and witty dialogue. A gem. ( )

Wondrously consistent, dark, cold writing. Interesting, powerful, resolute and loyal characters. There is a momentum, a methodical draw pulling the reader to the conclusion. Tim O'Brien's quote on the back of the book sums it up well, "The cold and unforgiving Alaskan wild becomes much more than a backdrop for this spellbinding story. It becomes a character--a living creature with its own hunger, its own secrets, its own icy motives, its own implacable will."

Wiliam Giraldi may be a new Tim O'Brien, or Cormac McCarthy. Giraldi is a writer to watch. He has power, and I don't think he's fully unleashed that power yet. He may be toying with us somewhat in that regard, or simply not had his time to shine. Well that time has come, and 'Hold the Dark' is Giraldi's harbinger. Beware readers - you will be reading him soon.

Mr. Giraldi - keep writing the good write but don't get cocky now that I've placed you in my trophy case of great writers. I will be following you...like your fearless Alaskan wolves, tracking the scent and sounds of your writing for some time.

The paperback book itself is well presented, cover to cover; good art, nice tactile matte finish. Gray title pages help set the overall tone and experience in reading the book. It reads like a long or fully realized novelette. You'll finish it fast. ( )

A literary thriller set in an otherworldly Alaska where society is broken and reality is pliable. In Hold the Dark, suspense and perfectly crafted language coexist.

Wolves are taking children in the remote village of Keelut. The mother, Medora Slone, of the third victim, a 7 year old boy named Bailey, writes to Russell Core, who authored a book about wolves, to ask him to come help her find her son. He travels to Keelut for reasons even he can’t explain, to help. There he encounters a shamanistic world that isn’t nearly as simple as it first seems.

Giraldi is very good at describing brutal and possibly evil acts in matter of fact language. He gives the reader the facts and the opportunity to sort out the meaning and implications. The story builds slowly but snaps into place suddenly (on page 70) after Bailey’s father returns from the war and confronts the truth of his disappearance. It never lags from there. ( )

This crime thriller set in the remote villages and tundra of Alaska lays bare different visions of civilization. The inhabitants of remote Keelut have their own ways of doing things—of dealing with birth, and death, and grief—and no matter how strong the forces of conventional culture are, in the end, the old ways win. In the process, the book “peels away the thin membrane that separates entertainment from art, and nature from civilization,” said reviewer Alan Cheuse in the Boston Globe.
Russell Core is a nature writer and an expert on wolves, with a famous book about them. When wolves take two, then three children from Keelut, the mother of the third child, a six-year-old boy named Bailey, asks him to come help her understand what is happening. Untethered from family and any part of life he finds meaningful, Core responds to her plea, and is drawn deeper and deeper into the lives, ways, and secrets of the remote village. The child’s mother, Medora Slone is married, but her husband Vernon has joined the military, fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, this nation’s “desert wars.” Do not assume this has made a regular American of him.
Yet Slone is described as a renegade, and Core wonders how this squares with life as a soldier. His best friend, an Alaska Native named Cheeon says Slone can make himself look like he is doing what he is supposed to, but will be doing what he wants to, nonetheless. Cheeon did not join the military for that reason. He hadn’t that gift.
When Slone returns to find his son dead and his wife missing, well, in the classic crime novel vernacular, “all hell breaks loose.” Hell, in this case, plays out during the year’s longest nights—18 hours of darkness—and over a tundra so vast “whole states could fit on its frozen breadth.” The weather is practically another character in this frozen terrain: “Like grief, cold is an absence that takes up space. Winter wants the soul and bores into the body to get it.” Before this book is through quite a few souls fall to the cold, the wolves, and the people.
Richard Ferrone’s narration perfectly fits the other-worldliness of the Alaska Natives and the care with which residents of the far north must operate in their unforgiving environment. Giraldi is the fiction editor of Boston University’s literary magazine Agni. ( )

I had to give this four stars because it ended up being so weird, bloody, violent and just...different...that you gotta respect it. First 40 pages were a slog but hang in there. ( )