Captain Lourenço d’Ourantes lives in the cold, northern wood of Luiçiana. His soldiering days are over. He has taken refuge among a people who rid themselves of their overlord and the servants of the Church in order to be free of their control. One day, a messenger arrives from the county of Constança Valley in the south. D’Ourantes’ first impulse is to send him away, he has no interest in revisiting his fighting days. But then the messenger explains that he is wanted by the Count not as a soldier, but as a wolf hunter. The same wolf that escaped his clutches in White Cliffs has returned to torment the people of Constança Valley and has killed the Count’s son. D’Ourantes will embark on a journey of redemption, dodging the traps set by bandits, robbers, and rapists, coming across boatmen, blind seers, Robin Hood figures. Night of the Wolf introduces us to a land of legends that exists only in the author’s imagination – the same feat he achieved with his previous novel, Night of the Crow – so convincingly that we feel the cold in our bones, the swaying of the boat, the coarseness of the rope around our wrists, the slicing of teeth. Perhaps we know more about the wolf than we think.

Abel Tomé won the prestigious Illa Nova Award for Fiction for Night of the Wolf. His previous novel, Night of the Crow, is also published by Small Stations Press.