Review: Into the Woods by Josh Soule
Into the Woods by Josh Soule
You’ll figure out what the beast is that threatens the village of Carn very quickly, but the truly intriguing puzzle is figuring out who the monster is. Josh Soule lays out his mystery quite well. Three old friends are reunited when John returns to Carn from Paris in the late sixteenth century. He has a secret that is greatly disturbing him. His friends Henry and Thomas are arguing with each other. Thomas has lost a cow to the beast and wants to hunt it down while Henry is more concerned with keeping the villagers from panicking. It’s an awkward situation made worse by Henry’s monstrous temper, but the novel sees the three men struggling to restore their friendship while they try to find the monster. The reader will spend all of that time looking for clues as to which of them is secretly the beast.
Soule plays fair with the reader giving out clues, but there were a couple of things that struck me as odd about the story. At one point, several corpses—victims of the beast—are discovered and again “not to panic” the villagers, the decision is made not to tell anyone what was found. In fact, by the end of the novel it is clear that a couple of villagers have known what was going on and who was responsible from the beginning, but didn’t share their knowledge even though doing so would have completely averted all the tragedies in the tale. There are also some minor issues with the setting of the story. For example, Soule uses the term rifle and musket interchangeably—they are not interchangeable and rifles weren’t invented yet. But these are ultimately small issues which do not harm the overall story.
In the final analysis, this is a novel about four people (I include the old priest who helped raise two of the boys) who care deeply about each other and there’s a definite sense of growing tragedy as they try to figure out how to protect the town. If you like a historical mystery that is strongly grounded in the characters, you’ll like Into the Woods.
