Master of Wolves

Today's ho'd book is Angela Knight's Master of Wolves. In Angela's blog, she mentions she had a hell of a time writing this book, but I guess it was worth the trouble, because it's one of my favorite books of hers that I've read.

Dire Wolf Jim London goes under cover as a drug dog named Rambo to investigate the murder of his childhood friend. It seems the entire Clarkston PD has gone bad. Everyone except for Faith West, the sexy K-9 handler.
Jim can smell the magic rot everywhere and is determined to keep it from Faith by any means necessary. Not an easy task when there's an evil vampire witch enchanting the police men and using death magic on innocent people like Jim's friend to increase her power.
Add to that a rogue werewolf running around town ripping out people's hearts, and Jim has his work cut out for him.
Faith finds out about the Mageverse in the worst possible way, she's bitten by the rogue werewolf. Now she's coping with having to fight a department full of cops gone bad in order to save the town, getting over her insecurities from a cheating ex to find a way to live with Jim, oh - and turning into a seven-plus foot Dire Wolf on occasion. Just another day for Clarkston's finest!

I haven't read all of Angela's books, but I've read most and try to keep up. She's created a very structured world with strict rules. I enjoy all of the different types of magical creatures, but it's easy to get lost if you're not paying attention. This isn't necessarily a book to be read at 3am when the mind is rounding at the edges. Angela tells the complete story of her hero and heroine in marvelous detail, yet still manages to include the viewpoints of secondary characters without losing focus. I've come to be a big fan of books with a few excerpts from the villain's point of view.
Master of Wolves gets big points for action (I particularly love a reference to Fight Club.) and romance. My favorite scene occurs after Faith is bitten by the rogue werewolf and is facing her first transformation. It's wonderfully detailed to explain specifics of the magic they use. It also provides a poignant view into the emotions of the hero, Jim - pointing out to the reader, Faith, and even Jim himself his feelings for Faith which he hasn't entirely confronted yet. Read the book for this chapter, but stick around for the Fight Club at the end! It's a wonderful read, as are all of Angela's. MoW is part of a series, an although it can be read by itself, it's more meaningful if you read the books in order. Particularly, I'd recommend reading Master of the Moon prior to this to hear the story of Jim's sister, Diana, who hooks up with Lyr, the Fairy King.