Title: Red Moon
Authors: Benjamin Percy
Rating: 4.25/5 Stars
Genre: Paranormal
Sub-Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Grand Central an imprint of Hachett Books
Published Date: May 12th, 2013
~Book Synopsis ~
Award -winning author Benjamin Percy presents an explosive and deeply layered literary thriller set in the American West. They live among us.
They are our neighbors, our mothers, our lovers.
They change.
When government agents kick down Claire Forrester’s front door and murder her parents, Claire realizes just how different she is. Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and hours later stepped off it, the only passenger left alive, a hero. Chase Williams has sworn to protect the people of the United States from the menace in their midst, but he is becoming the very thing he has promised to destroy. So far, the threat has been controlled by laws and violence and drugs. But the night of the red moon is coming, when an unrecognizable world will emerge…and the battle for humanity will begin
~Karen’s Review ~
Red Moon by Benjamin Percy is not your typical paranormal thriller, it is also a social commentary on what freedoms and social mores we are willing to sacrifice in order for us to remain safe; to logically discriminate for what we perceive as evil. The evil in Red Moon is a group of people who are infected with a blood born virus that causes them to become werewolves. You know the type; snarling, baying at the full moon type of werewolves. The book follows the commentary of three unique individuals whose lives also intersect within the story.
The first character we encounter is Patrick, a high school kid on his way to live with his mother. He is aboard a plane when a werewolf terrorist slaughters all the passengers. Patrick only stays alive by playing dead; laying still, while being covered by a dead body. This is a thriller with similarities to September 11th, where the terrorist in the form of disenfranchised werewolves have attacked several people in flight planes. Some crashed and some landed, but out of all the planes the only survivor is Patrick.
Next is Claire, a girl living in Wisconsin with her parents. Claire and her family happen to be infected with the virus, so they are all werewolves. But to Claire, her family are everyday normal people, and life was normal; that is, until men in black show up, and her parents are killed, leaving Claire on the run.
Miriam is another interesting character we get to learn about. She too is a werewolf, but she lives in isolation in Oregon. She also happens to be Claire’s paternal aunt. She has some unwanted visitors she can’t seem to get rid of and a murky past.
The governor of Oregon, Chase Williams, is also a voice in the world that Percy has built. He is the power of the normal people, the ones that see the viral caring Lupines as nothing more than dogs that should be bagged, tagged and separated from the human population. Because to them the virus removed all rights from the infected, as they are no longer human; so why should our laws and rules apply to them.
The werewolves live amongst the general population, but they also have a Lupine Republic that is occupied by the United States. The main reason it is occupied is that the Republic is rich with uranium, and dollar signs have a lot to do with the occupation. The ones who live amongst the general population do so on the QT and discrimination abounds.
What Percy has done is used modern day circumstances and put a paranormal spin to them. I am old enough to remember when AIDS first hit the news and the hysteria that resulted. We have all lived through and are still suffering from terrorism on our own soil. Percy has used our modern events to propel his story. This is a very well written book, and if you are looking for something out of the norm of typical paranormal, I suggest you give it a try.
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~About the Author ~
Nice review. However, I thought Percy sacrificed story for analogizing his werewolf world to the real one. The book was best when it focused on Patrick and Claire. My interest waned in the middle part where the focus shifted to the politician and the fate of the fictional society. But the book was okay overall. His werewolf concept was pretty cool. Keep up the good work.