By the Light of the Moon by Larry Kerr

Damnation Books, 2011
ISBN: 9781615723478
Available: Trade paperback & multiformat digital

The problem with writing a traditional [vampire/zombie/werewolf/serial killer/etc] tale these days is that the mythos of most of these creatures are so ingrained in us that “traditional” often translates to boring. If you slap a howling werewolf on the cover readers know what your bad guy is and spending two hundred pages with your characters still in the dark can easily become tedious rather than a delightfully gory romp through a dark night. This is the most glaring problem with By the Light of the Moon, which stars a paranoid newspaper reporter, his girlfriend, and a small town cop squaring off against a vicious, strong, mysterious creature who gets really hungry every full moon.

It also doesn’t help that the best (and sometimes only real) descriptions come from the characters telling each other how poignant that scene is, or how relevant this fact is. By the Light of the Moon is not a bad book. Kerr’s strength is his characterization, and he recognizes how to strike all the dramatic moments. The book’s greatest flaw is that it does nothing new with the mythos and lacks an atmosphere that would make up for it. Given its higher small press price tag, it’s not the best option for public collections, but werewolf fans, especially the die-hard werewolf-monster-killer fans will dig it.

Contains: violence and language