crime.

A crime novel involving NO vampires and NO werewolves? How can this be? Believe it or not, this is a GOOD thing. I promise. Take a little breather from the undead and give The Wolves of Fairmount Park by Dennis Tafoya a whirl. (Yes, the title mentions wolves, but it's not what you think - it's better).

Two teenage boys outside of a dope house. A drive-by shooting leaves one dead and one comatose. Tragic? You bet, especially since neither boy is the drug user or dealer type. Of course there was a chain of events that lead these two boys to their awful fate. The big question is why? Why were two middle-class white boys on the wrong side of the tracks? And why would someone shoot them? The answers are sought by two diametrically opposed characters: Danny Ramirez, a young star detective in the Violent Crimes unit, and Orlando Kevin Donovan, a junkie and uncle of the boy in a coma, who lives just blocks away from the crime scene.

Tafoya unfolds this story is such a way that it is dark yet sweet. Lives are taken, and others are changed forever. The Wolves of Farimount Park will be the best mystery you read this year.