Andrew Klavan has become one of my favorite living authors, and his current Cameron Winter series is excellent. His standalone novel, Werewolf Cop, came out in 2015. When first heard that Klavan considers it one of his finest works, I thought, “Maybe so, but what a silly title”. Well, despite the cheesy title, it is a terrific mix of horror, suspense, and straightforward murder mystery.

It begins with a crime scene involving several bodies that have been gruesomely cut to pieces in the NYC apartment of a small-time fencer of stolen goods. Zach “Cowboy” Adams and his partner, Martin “Broadway Joe” Goulart, are part of a special investigative unit: The Task Force for Extraordinary Crimes. All signs from this carnage point to a shadowy German gangster, Dominic Abend, who has been on international law enforcement’s radar for years, but he has kept a low profile. Such a low profile that there are barely any photographs of him. However, he seems to be involved in every kind of criminal enterprise imaginable, and it appears he is moving in to take over NYC.

While going over the apartment, Zach discovers a secret storage space in which a terrified little boy is hiding. He is taken to the station and during questioning he says he overheard somebody demanding to know where the “stoomp bassard” was. The social worker talking to him assumes he heard “stupid bastard”, but Zach decides to do a little research on his own.

After digging into the internet, he finds a reference to “Stumpf’s Baselard” in a paper written by a German university Professor Gretchen Dankl. It explores the mystery of a missing 15th century dagger called the Baselard. The paper has disappeared from the internet, but Zach is able to contact Dankl via email. She sends him a copy of her paper, but she will not communicate anything useful electronically, so Zach convinces his supervisor to sign off on him flying to Germany to meet with Dankl face to face.

His trip to Germany is an almost surreal experience, where Zach is so jet lagged he thinks he’s hallucinating things. There are all kinds of riots happening across Europe, and the political order there seems to be collapsing. Professor Dankl is a wizened old woman who appears to be crazy. She tells Zach that Stumpf’s Baselard is a dagger that is imbued with the power to prolong life and cure any wound. It was used to execute a notorious murderer who was suspected of being a werewolf in the 15th century, and after reappearing a few times in European history, seems to have disappeared. Dankl then shows Zach a photograph of a group of Nazi officers from WWII, and one of them bears a remarkable resemblance to Dominic Abend.

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