Wild Angel
Pat Murphy
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2000 TOR Books
ISBN: 0312866267
Limited Availability

With the discovery of gold in California all sorts of people with all sorts of pasts, have made their way into the wild lands packing in their hopes, evils & courage. It is no place for children & when a prospector & his wife are horribly murdered, their young daughter is left to the wilderness. An alpha female wolf whose den has been violated by the murderer & her pups slain, finds the girl & offers her a chance to survive.

In this fine, glad & rip-snorting adventure is entwined the mythology of Romulus & Remus & the search for gold, friendship & redemption. We meet Max, a likable itinerant artist-cum-gold miner who uses his sketching skills to illustrate his letters & books. When he comes across the massacre in a lovely valley, by a pristine stream, he realizes from a letter the woman had been writing that there had been a child with them. As he finds no trace of her he feels compelled to take it with him to the nearest frontier town where he writes to the person addressed in the letter, thus begins a long & prosperous friendship.

Over the years the child thrives, living happily; growing strong, exploring, learning & claiming her place in her pack. She watches as more & more humans pass through & settle her beloved land. When she rescues one from a mountain lion in the only way she knows how, the legend of Wild Angel is born. In time Max, having heard of the legend as he roams about sketching for his books, meets up with this legend & becomes her protector until the day the traveling circus performs in town & she faces the murderer whose scent she has always remembered.

With acerbic sayings by Mark Twain, delightful twists & turns & an assortment of hilarious, devious characters, Pat Murphy has spun a deft tale of the intimate lives of wolves & an amusing & exciting adventure. It leaves many beautiful images, moments of comedy & some cogent philosophies to ponder over.

I like the way Pat Murphy has written this one. You can't pin a genre on this author other than a fine fiction writer, the kind of fiction Mark Twain wrote, the kind that wins Nebula Awards.

Also by Pat Murphy: The Falling Woman; Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles & There and Back Again.

publisher: http://www.tor.com

Do catch my Interview with Pat Murphy as one of the Brazen Hussies
(08/06/00)

Rebecca