Shusterman’s second Dark Fusion outing follows Dread Locks (April 15, 2005) in adding folktale elements to a contemporary teen horror tale. Here, 16-year-old Red finds himself wrestling with conflicting loyalties after he joins the Wolves, a werewolf street gang, as a spy for his werewolf-hunter Grandma. Set on fictional mean streets (one significant encounter takes place at the corner of Andersen and Grimm) and featuring a melting pot cast that includes the Crypts, a rival gang of female vampire shape-changers led by Red’s former babysitter, this page-turner winds briskly into a suspenseful battle beneath the full moon, and ends with multiple twists. Fine fare for a solitary evening’s reading, and middle range on the gruesomeness scale. (Fantasy. YA)
