THE CRY OF THE WOLF

A boy lets slip to a stranger known as ""The Hunter"" that there are wolves near his family's Surrey farm. Though initially skeptical (no wolves have been seen there for centuries), the Hunter soon finds proof and sets out on a single-handed crusade to slaughter them. Why? He has spent his fife killing rare animals and sees a unique opportunity to bag the last of a species. Indeed, he hunts down 70 wolves; still, a single youngling, Graycub, escapes and returns years later to exact revenge. The cumulative brutality here lends the story a certain raw power; the Hunter is an amoral and omnipotent force, while the wolves, with both names and thoughts, elicit sympathy but are never given a chance. The few humans play minor roles; a single comic scene seems more intrusion than relief. In the end, nobody wins: the Hunter's death, though slow and painful, comes too late; Graycub is alive and free but the last of his kind. There's more food for confusion than for thought in this savage hunt and its ambiguous outcome.