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Der Werwolf von Sankt Peter. Horror- Roman.
1st Arrow 1992 edition paperback fine book In stock shipped from our UK warehouse
380 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
About the author
Michael Cadnum
77 books19 followersMichael Cadnum has had a number of jobs over the course of his life, including pick-and-shoveler for the York Archaeological Trust, in York, England, and substitute teacher in Oakland, California, but his true calling is writing. He is the author of thirty-five books, including the National Book Award finalist The Book of the Lion. His Calling Home and Breaking the Fall were both nominated for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is a former Creative Writing Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts. Also a poet, he has received several awards, including Poetry Northwest's Helen Bullis Prize and the Owl Creek Book Award. Michael lives in Albany, California, with his wife Sherina.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
October 14, 2019
The first half of this book seems to be a traditional “cursed object” werewolf story: repressed nebbish guy who collects antiques, creepy set of wolf like teeth set in silver with a sinister history, weird dreams, hideous night-time murders followed by the protagonist waking up naked in his back yard (while at the same time the he becomes stronger and more assertive in ‘real life’), obsessed monster hunter, etc. Interestingly, the book gets to the point where this sort of story would be coming to a climax with about 1/3 of the book left to go. At that point, Cadmum introduces several twists that keep the action (and the story) going. The author’s storytelling is decent and the plot pretty good but I felt that the protagonist’s first person narration seemed too cold and rational: even when he was gripped by fear or violent urges, he described his feelings in an extremely detached way, which really detracted from the reader relating to a man who feels that he’s losing his mind (or his humanity). Also, the way that he comes to terms with his violent crimes seemed rather facile. Finally, werewolf vs. shark, seriously? I’m going to be charitable and give this a very low 3.
June 22, 2014
This is seriously my most favorite werewolf book of all time. The way it is written, and the interesting way that one becomes a werewolf, through the haunted relic of a set of wolf teeth set in silver, is unique and intriguing. I love how the werewolves are not what they seem to be, and you get to see both the savage beast and the magical creature that they are. This is just everything I love in a good werewolf story. I haven't read anything to rival it! I've read it again and again, and will still read it over and over in the future.
August 6, 2015
This was a fun read. Old paperback found in one of my boxes while unpacking. Reading it reminded me of when I was a teenager and living off scary paperbacks.
September 25, 2023
Right off the bat.
On page 19 the author states “I slipped my business card in her hand.”
On page 20, “I had not seen her give me her card.”
When the author doesn’t care enough to keep what he is writing straight from page to page. I don’t bother.
I don’t care if it’s an over all ok story with a few errors. I do set the bar very high for authors because they should be held accountable. If you’re going to write something for a consumer to read. This consumer is going to spend hours of their life reading it. I expect a little effort. A few typos is one thing, but this is riddled with the story changing in mid sentence because the author either forgot what he was writing or needed to force the story in a new direction and he honestly thought the readers were dumb enough to look the other way.
Not this reader, sorry.
On page 19 the author states “I slipped my business card in her hand.”
On page 20, “I had not seen her give me her card.”
When the author doesn’t care enough to keep what he is writing straight from page to page. I don’t bother.
I don’t care if it’s an over all ok story with a few errors. I do set the bar very high for authors because they should be held accountable. If you’re going to write something for a consumer to read. This consumer is going to spend hours of their life reading it. I expect a little effort. A few typos is one thing, but this is riddled with the story changing in mid sentence because the author either forgot what he was writing or needed to force the story in a new direction and he honestly thought the readers were dumb enough to look the other way.
Not this reader, sorry.
December 29, 2023
This author very clearly does not see women as people but instead, just stupid ass cardboard cutout accessories to the main guy in the book (who, by the way, gets away free from raping a woman and is then even reassured by ANOTHER woman that it's chill and who gives a fuck that he did that). Frankly this could also have been cut down by at least 100 pages bc they basically consisted of "omg Johanna is dead!! wait she's alive. OMG Johanna is dead!!! wait she's alive. OMG Jo-". Absolute garbage.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 21, 2014
Picked this up during a town festival in an old antique store that sold paperbacks. Good story.
June 4, 2025
There is something uniquely torturous in reading narration by a man who is consistently presumptuous, and consistently wrong, with little self reflection. A cuckold's anxiety, mixed with a Freudian psychotherapist's infatuation with analysing everyone they meet, gives us constant quips on intentions and beliefs and dread and Oh God She's Dead! Oh wait she's alive, but Now She's Dead! Oh wait she's alive, but Now She's Dead! Oh wait sh
It's relentless; no matter how much Benjamin changes, now matter how often he casts aside his smothering human foibles, no matter how strong he's supposed to become as a person, he will catastrophise. It is entirely at odds with the progression of his character and the story, and there is not one moment of lucid self-awareness, with maybe a few passing comments about it from other characters dropped in the entirety of this novel. And I would like to emphasise: it is genuinely relentless.
Aside from that, this falls into the trap of many a werewolf narrative. No matter how you try to make yourself stand out, no matter how you try to be different from the generic horror/thriller lycanthropic shlock - in this case with heady Freudian prose - the werewolf parts are exactly the same, beat by beat. I'm not asking anyone to overhaul a classic, but I can't shake the feeling when reading a book like this that there's one book badly stapled onto the same one I've read dozens of times.
With all that negativity out the way, I did like how this was written; plenty of wonderful turns of phrase, imagery, the lot. A good read if Benjamin's constant neuroticism doesn't get under your skin.
It's relentless; no matter how much Benjamin changes, now matter how often he casts aside his smothering human foibles, no matter how strong he's supposed to become as a person, he will catastrophise. It is entirely at odds with the progression of his character and the story, and there is not one moment of lucid self-awareness, with maybe a few passing comments about it from other characters dropped in the entirety of this novel. And I would like to emphasise: it is genuinely relentless.
Aside from that, this falls into the trap of many a werewolf narrative. No matter how you try to make yourself stand out, no matter how you try to be different from the generic horror/thriller lycanthropic shlock - in this case with heady Freudian prose - the werewolf parts are exactly the same, beat by beat. I'm not asking anyone to overhaul a classic, but I can't shake the feeling when reading a book like this that there's one book badly stapled onto the same one I've read dozens of times.
With all that negativity out the way, I did like how this was written; plenty of wonderful turns of phrase, imagery, the lot. A good read if Benjamin's constant neuroticism doesn't get under your skin.
June 26, 2025
There seem to be surprisingly few good classic werewolf books out there, so when someone recommended this book I was intrigued. The story reminded me a lot of the 1994 film Wolf (starring Jack Nicholson). The stories are similar in that they take an unconventional approach to the typical werewolf story and have the main character seeing their curse as more of a blessing and the impact it has on their ordinary lives.
Cadnum's writing is very vivid and descriptive. I haven't read any of his other works before, but from the dust jacket I can see that he is also a poet, which you can absolutely tell when reading this book. Although the language used is beautiful in some places, there were times I thought it tended to ramble which affected the flow of the story. The writing is slightly too formal at times and made Benjamin come across a bit wooden during moments that were supposed to be emotional. But it's not a major issue, and some of it can be explained given Benjamin's choice of career.
There are some fantastic chase scenes in the book - I loved reading about Benjamin's escape from the police and hounds. If you can get through a slightly slow beginning, these parts alone are worth the read.
A fun read overall.
Cadnum's writing is very vivid and descriptive. I haven't read any of his other works before, but from the dust jacket I can see that he is also a poet, which you can absolutely tell when reading this book. Although the language used is beautiful in some places, there were times I thought it tended to ramble which affected the flow of the story. The writing is slightly too formal at times and made Benjamin come across a bit wooden during moments that were supposed to be emotional. But it's not a major issue, and some of it can be explained given Benjamin's choice of career.
There are some fantastic chase scenes in the book - I loved reading about Benjamin's escape from the police and hounds. If you can get through a slightly slow beginning, these parts alone are worth the read.
A fun read overall.
September 6, 2023
A good book, albeit bizarre, and unlike any other werewolf novel I've ever read.
I liked Michael Cadnum's prose, which is very much that of a poet, and his turns of phrase feel just as elegant discussing the inner feelings of a bored psychiatrist's personal life falling apart as they do creating a mental image of that same psychiatrist fighting a fucking shark in the ocean in the shape of a giant wolf, or watching geysers of blood spewing out of the jugular of a guy whose head he tore off.
The story takes a neck-snapping 90 degree turn halfway through the book from a cursed-object horror yarn into an altogether different kind of story, Jack Londonesque in its desire to overwhelm the reader with the Power of Nature and to lay bear the Artifice of Man, and then finally oscillates back to somewhere in the middle of the two worlds, where things work out just a little too neatly, and where the whole production comes dangerously close to vanishing up its own ass. But the author believes wholeheartedly in the story he is telling, and the momentum is more than enough to carry it over the finish line.
I liked Michael Cadnum's prose, which is very much that of a poet, and his turns of phrase feel just as elegant discussing the inner feelings of a bored psychiatrist's personal life falling apart as they do creating a mental image of that same psychiatrist fighting a fucking shark in the ocean in the shape of a giant wolf, or watching geysers of blood spewing out of the jugular of a guy whose head he tore off.
The story takes a neck-snapping 90 degree turn halfway through the book from a cursed-object horror yarn into an altogether different kind of story, Jack Londonesque in its desire to overwhelm the reader with the Power of Nature and to lay bear the Artifice of Man, and then finally oscillates back to somewhere in the middle of the two worlds, where things work out just a little too neatly, and where the whole production comes dangerously close to vanishing up its own ass. But the author believes wholeheartedly in the story he is telling, and the momentum is more than enough to carry it over the finish line.
March 1, 2024
Schöne Geschichte über die tiefen Wünsche der Freiheit
Eigentlich beeinhaltet der Klappentext wirklich alles Wissenswertes über das Buch. Hier handelt es sich nicht um die derzeit so beliebten Gestaltenwandler-Romane mit viel Sex und Action. Es ist eher fast eine klassische Erzählung. Ben wird zu einem Werwolf und erlebt dabei wie schön es ist die Freiheit eines wilden Tieres zu erleben. Allerdings gibt es hier natürlich ein sehr grossen Problem....die Menschen, die sich irgendwann auf die Jagd nach Ben und seiner gefundenen, ebenfalls Werwolf, Lebensgefährtin machen. Die Angst vor dem Unbekanntem, auch wie dieses übersinnliche Phänomen von der menschlichen Umwelt ignoriert und umschrieben wird.
Das Buch ist sehr gut und flüssig geschrieben und wird auf keinen Fall langweilig. Es beschäftigt einen auch wenn man nicht liesst weil man ja wissen will wie das Liebespaar zurecht kommt und überlebt.
Eigentlich beeinhaltet der Klappentext wirklich alles Wissenswertes über das Buch. Hier handelt es sich nicht um die derzeit so beliebten Gestaltenwandler-Romane mit viel Sex und Action. Es ist eher fast eine klassische Erzählung. Ben wird zu einem Werwolf und erlebt dabei wie schön es ist die Freiheit eines wilden Tieres zu erleben. Allerdings gibt es hier natürlich ein sehr grossen Problem....die Menschen, die sich irgendwann auf die Jagd nach Ben und seiner gefundenen, ebenfalls Werwolf, Lebensgefährtin machen. Die Angst vor dem Unbekanntem, auch wie dieses übersinnliche Phänomen von der menschlichen Umwelt ignoriert und umschrieben wird.
Das Buch ist sehr gut und flüssig geschrieben und wird auf keinen Fall langweilig. Es beschäftigt einen auch wenn man nicht liesst weil man ja wissen will wie das Liebespaar zurecht kommt und überlebt.
March 6, 2020
An interesting take on the werewolf legend. A bit predictable as you reach the end.
March 1, 2022
One of my all-time favorite werewolf stories.
August 21, 2024
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
This isn't unlike a book I have read, but it is certainly a great depiction of one person becoming a werewolf and killing in the night. Granted, I haven't read a lot of werewolf fiction, so maybe my opinion is a tad biased. I have, however, read different fantasy fiction that usually has the person being bit, and on the night of the first full moon of being bit, they change and hunt. Very stereotypical--I know. This book depicts the main character, Benjamin, stuck in a rut of his life. Pretty much everything that can go wrong...does go wrong. The only thing that seems to turn his life upside down but in the best way is these teeth, the silver fangs. He's allured by the sheer sight of them, that somehow he is MEANT to have them. As if this simple trinket, this unknown artifact can give his life meaning again. Fortunately, for Benjamin's sake, they do. He meets the woman he feels he's meant to be with. He starts feeling more confident and alive. For a man who is going through a divorce and finding out his business partner is the cause of it, Benjamin shows endurance in the most dim situations. But what goes up must come down. With Benjamin's humanity in question, he comes to the realization that these fangs have changed him into a monster, a monster that kills. He'll have to battle against the authorities, hunters, and himself to come to the awakening that he is an excellent being of extraordinary powers, leaving behind the world he knew.
It wasn't a bad read, I wish there was more werewolf fiction similar to this.
This isn't unlike a book I have read, but it is certainly a great depiction of one person becoming a werewolf and killing in the night. Granted, I haven't read a lot of werewolf fiction, so maybe my opinion is a tad biased. I have, however, read different fantasy fiction that usually has the person being bit, and on the night of the first full moon of being bit, they change and hunt. Very stereotypical--I know. This book depicts the main character, Benjamin, stuck in a rut of his life. Pretty much everything that can go wrong...does go wrong. The only thing that seems to turn his life upside down but in the best way is these teeth, the silver fangs. He's allured by the sheer sight of them, that somehow he is MEANT to have them. As if this simple trinket, this unknown artifact can give his life meaning again. Fortunately, for Benjamin's sake, they do. He meets the woman he feels he's meant to be with. He starts feeling more confident and alive. For a man who is going through a divorce and finding out his business partner is the cause of it, Benjamin shows endurance in the most dim situations. But what goes up must come down. With Benjamin's humanity in question, he comes to the realization that these fangs have changed him into a monster, a monster that kills. He'll have to battle against the authorities, hunters, and himself to come to the awakening that he is an excellent being of extraordinary powers, leaving behind the world he knew.
It wasn't a bad read, I wish there was more werewolf fiction similar to this.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2008
The werewolf of modern myth is a tormented creature, horrified by its own descent into unreasoning brutality. This is the story of a different kind of werewolf.
Superficially, it has similar plot devices. The narrator's transformation starts when he's given an antique set of silver fangs (not when he's bitten, I'm glad to say). In the following days he becomes more sensitive to scents and sounds; he starts to dream of running, and then of committing hideous crimes. In time he links his own activities to those of a notorious murderer on the loose -- but, with the help of a strange and alluring woman, he begins to understand his own capabilities and his sensual, near-mystical relationship to the workings of the natural world. He and the woman escape the city and the police, only to find that far more skilled and deadly enemies have picked up their trail.
It's a good book. The pace sometimes becomes rushed, giving the prose a breathless feel, and at times I found it almost incoherent as the author described the depth and intuitiveness of the werewolf's connection to the world around him. But the plot is well-developed, and the protagonist is a far more satisfying and credible kind of werewolf than the inexplicable psychotics that blight so much of the genre.
Superficially, it has similar plot devices. The narrator's transformation starts when he's given an antique set of silver fangs (not when he's bitten, I'm glad to say). In the following days he becomes more sensitive to scents and sounds; he starts to dream of running, and then of committing hideous crimes. In time he links his own activities to those of a notorious murderer on the loose -- but, with the help of a strange and alluring woman, he begins to understand his own capabilities and his sensual, near-mystical relationship to the workings of the natural world. He and the woman escape the city and the police, only to find that far more skilled and deadly enemies have picked up their trail.
It's a good book. The pace sometimes becomes rushed, giving the prose a breathless feel, and at times I found it almost incoherent as the author described the depth and intuitiveness of the werewolf's connection to the world around him. But the plot is well-developed, and the protagonist is a far more satisfying and credible kind of werewolf than the inexplicable psychotics that blight so much of the genre.
April 2, 2011
A fairly decent werewolf novel, set in modern-day San Francisco. An interesting twist in that the werewolf "genes" are passed on through the exchange of fangs which are immediately irresistable to people who find them and which become increasingly difficult for that person to get rid of once they have worked their magic. Effective narration in the first person as told by the psychiatrist/werewolf evokes much of the tone of Shelley's "Frankenstein." Only complaints are that the werewolf develops too much of a 90's eco-yuppie personality--becoming a "kinder, gentler" werewolf who wants to commune with nature. Particularly annoying is a scene towards the end where the werewolf plays in the sea with a pod of dolphins. "We played as children play, thinking of nothing else." Still, a pretty enjoyable work
October 25, 2023
While I read this many years ago and barely remember it, I do remember the writing style. I'd describe it as being a bit highbrow and just slightly snooty. It was a little hard to read because I felt the style was inappropriate to the subject matter. However, it was many years ago and maybe I should revisit Saint Peter's Wolf. Then again, there are other books I've read many years ago, some further back in time than this one, that I do remember. So, if all I can really remember is the writing style (aside from those silver teeth), then, maybe it's not worth a revisit. We'll see.
July 30, 2011
Some of the description is absolutely wonderful-- the fangs especially. But some things could have done with more editing-- the numerous chase/hunt scenes for example. Not a bad read though, and more in line with some of the traditional European werewolf legends, involving a cursed object instead of an "infected" bite. I waver between 2 and 3 stars for this only because the ending really dragged on and on.
June 23, 2013
"I would tell you, though, that the animal in us is wiser than we can imagine. Wiser, even, than the child in us, and the child is very wise."
"...we were like frames in a film, stored in a can for years until, for a few seconds, light poured through us."
"We live in anticipation, imagining what we are about to do, what we are about to finish already escaping us, slipping away. What keeps us alive is always the next moment, the next heartbeat, the breath to come."
"...we were like frames in a film, stored in a can for years until, for a few seconds, light poured through us."
"We live in anticipation, imagining what we are about to do, what we are about to finish already escaping us, slipping away. What keeps us alive is always the next moment, the next heartbeat, the breath to come."
July 23, 2009
This book had a pretty cool take on how to become a werewolf. It was a theory I'd certainly never heard before. It's been awhile since I read this book, but I wouldn't mind reading it again. I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes books about werewolves or the supernatural in general.
June 12, 2008
My first werewolf book as a teen, and still my favourite.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews