Mythology, Mystery, and a Monster

It’s October 1920. On Floodwood Pond, deep in the heart of the Adirondacks, two scientist argue as they paddle in search of long-lost Native American artifacts. They are both members of the prestigious Strabo society, but that’s where their similarity ends. Anthony Cardonas is a rigidly self-righteous old-school explorer with political ambitions who becomes increasingly frustrated with the starry-eyed mysticism of his younger companion, Alistair Wulver. The animosity between them escalates into violence in the trackless wilderness, and a murder triggers an unstoppable chain of events.

By the early 1960s a werewolf is terrorizing sedate, suburban Westchester County, New York, prompting Strabo’s leadership to hire an intrepid female professor and world-class crossbow competitor named Artemis Fletcher to track down the beast. But all is not what it seems, and a greater pursuit unfolds in a breathless track from New York City across the Adirondacks to the high Himalayas and ancient temples of Kyoto Japan.

Pete Kennedy pens fiction like he plays guitar, with great assurity and flair. Floodwood is an impressive first novel, full of taut energy, entertainment, heart, and soul. It grabs you by the lapels on the very first page and never lets you go. Floodwood had me at archeology, Native American lore, Buddhism, and blazing-eyed were-things. And then comes the kickass academic-ninja heroine who makes her own crossbows! - Gareth Branwyn, Boing Boing contributor, cyberculture and maker movement pioneer