The Water Wolf

by Thomas Sullivan

Welcome to Thomas Sullivan's newest book. Be warned though, once you open this book hold on to your hat for it's an Indiana Jones adventure in print. This story is full of action/adventure, myths and legends from around the world, not to mention, love and romance that can never be.

Meet Lane Anderson, a dispeller of myths and manipulations, and a product of hippie parents who had done too many drugs in their past. He's a very jaded man for when he was born, in a backwater city of Peru; his father was killed by a feral beast in the jungle over a stone tablet. After being shuffled from one hippie compound to another with his mom where he witnesses his own horrors which turn him into a very logical man instead of being a very imaginative boy, he doesn't believe in the supernatural.

Once old enough he leaves his mom and his past behind him until he meets back up with her many years down the road when she has AIDS. After she dies Lane finds the tablet from Peru that his father died for. On closer inspection the tablet leads him to Egypt. While there, like in all Indiana Jones stories, he meets a lot of unsavory characters who end up killing each other while "helping" Lane. But while in Egypt he finds a second stone tablet being protected by Anubis, Egyptian God of the Dead. Once Lane has time to examine the second tablet closely he's led to Connemara, Ireland to a cemetery called Thiollaney Merriu.

This is where most of the story takes place. Whenever Ireland is mentioned certain ideas and landscapes are pictured. The author has defiantly brought this country to life in his details and offhand remarks. My favorite parts dealt with the Priest Abban who turns out to be more of a local trickster than a priest. Plus, the author has a great way of explaining the Irish words so that everyone can understand what he's trying to convey to the reader.
At Thiollaney Merriu we meet the McCabe family: Brone, watcher and protector of the cemetery; Una, Brone's mysterious wife; and Sosanna, their daughter and Lane's love interest. Lane's main goal is to get the third tablet on top of the pillar in the cemetery to examine it but, he's throttled at every turn until Sosanna helps him out. But with most Irish stories there's always gloom and doom at the end. This story is no different from those. Is the pillar a gateway to Hell or is it just a ruin from the past? Will the dead walk the Earth again after years of suffering or will the Water Wolf guard Ireland? This story leaves clues throughout for the reader to piece together and also hanging on for the next one. This is definitely a novel to pick up and consume.
 

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