"Wolf Rider" by Avi Book Review

Wolf Rider by Avi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

On an ordinary evening, just as he's about to leave for a party, 15-year-old Andy Zadinski receives a phone call from a stranger that changes his life. The caller, Zeke, confesses to the murder of a young woman named Nina Klemmer. Andy immediately calls the police, who shrug it off as a gag or a crank call. But Andy persists when he happens to meet Nina, who is just as Zeke described her. She takes his warnings as harassment, however, and everyone now thinks that Andy himself made up the call. His attempts to ferret out Zeke and protect Nina, while compromising his own safety, make for an exciting tale of the terror lurking beneath everyday surroundings and behind ordinary events.

I'm not sure what to think of this book. I know it was meant for a younger audience, so I feel I must give it some leeway.

I'm not convinced that most of what happened wasn't just coming out of Andy's own mind. (view spoiler)[ For one thing, the man who is apparently a vicious murderer, doesn't actually commit any murders. At least, not in this book. He just seems to want to live out horrible fantasies. Which isn't great, but totally better than killing people. There's no mention of past murder victims being found. Lucas could've just wanted to kill to hide from the embarrassment of being found out that he even has them. And I'm not entirely sure that he would've killed Andy. He did tie him up, but he wasn't exactly dressed for murder: he was running the risk of anyone seeing him in his usual clothes. And he had to have been a reasonably well-known personage around the town. Professors don't exactly make enough to have their initials put on their snazzy cufflinks with their salary.

And the ending didn't answer anything. Lucas was never found out and he died, but that part didn't bother me so much as the strained relationship between Andy and his father. Instead of thinking that his son might have been right the whole time with his finding of the fancy cufflink, he could easily assume that Andy might be a killer. For all he knows, he was stalking some woman (which is exactly what he did) and trying to put the blame on someone else. So now, with the finding of the cufflink, he could also think that his son succeeded in killing a beloved professor and making it look like a car crash. The sequel for this would probably have a lot of therapy and 'medicine' for Andy when he gets back from his Aunt's.  (hide spoiler)]

I don't know. It was certainly a fast read. But I'm so used to CSI and thorough investigations on TV, maybe this was a step too far down for me to enjoy.

I read another of Avi's books before, "Blue Heron" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...), way back in middle school and I loved it. I'm wondering if I would like it now. It's a completely different story from this one, so possibly.

View all my reviews

3 out of 5 stars.