Bobby Holmes, his cousin Brenda Watson and friends are embroiled in a deadly mystery in the North York Moors of England. An old beggar warns Bobby to stay away, and another stranger appears to be at the center of it all. Bobby and his mates travel to the seaside town of Whitby, where a puzzling tattoo on the stranger is revealed to mean Wolf Slayer.

Their goal, to track him down, leads them to baffling clues: the appearance of a group of gypsies and a librarian attached to Her Majesty’s Government, who is researching a group of super wolves. His research dates as far back as King Edward and his ally, Peter Corbet, who is charged with ridding the country of these beasts. Searching for his mates, friend Michael gets attacked and captured by the monster, then taken to the witches who control the creature.


Seeking their friend, Bobby and the others locate the gypsies, discover their leader is the beggar who initially warned Bobby, and receives aid and information. They learn that the mysterious stranger they’ve hunted is a descendant of Corbet, named Alex. Their new friend takes them to the Red Lion Inn for help in finding the cottage of the Witches of Westerdale.


They find it, burn the cottage along with the witches, rescue Michael, and return to the Inn. Here they find the beast, waiting. It is killed by Alex, who then leaves to help another in New Zealand.- Goodreads


As a disclaimer, this is a book two. I did not read the first book but in all honesty I didn't feel as if I needed to. The author provides enough backstory from the first book that it isn't necessary for the reader (well at least me) to read it. But getting to this read, I enjoyed it.


I really don't read Sherlock Holmes retellings but I picked this up because it has a paranormal aspect of it (shocking). Although this read is for, what I would assume, middle school readers, it was pretty heavy in the graphic section; so if you are an adult looking to give this to your child, you might want to take a look into it first. 


This was a slow read as most mystery novels are; however, this was oddly slow. Not a whole lot happens and even when Bobby and his crew try to find information it is a lot of Bobby running off without telling anyone and them chasing after him. Bobby does that a lot and was extremely hypocritical about it because he would say in one sentence "we need to be a team. All for one and one for all." and then he would run on a wimp AND leave out information that affects everyone. 


Speaking of everyone, his friends weren't really that helpful. If anything they made situations worst. This could be completely because they were created to solely keep the story along and the reader needed to see how amazing Bobby was OR they weren't developed enough. Either way they weren't exactly the biggest of help and Bobby could have done this whole thing on his own. 


The paranormal aspect of the novel was good but it was brushed over. There was a lot more the author(s) could have done with the history and the culture of the environment. The setting, which was written very well, screamed for a deep dive and that is really what the book was missing. 


As previously mentioned, the pace was slow, Bobby was a hypocrite but the one thing I didn't fully mention was the writing. Overall, it wasn't the strongest I have read. It is as if the author(s) were more concerned with how to add more chapters than actual development. The plots twists weren't actually twists and the one that was a "big" twist within my eyes was weak. 


Despite this, it wasn't a bad read. For me, it was a nice introduction into Bobby Holmes and I am interested in another book.


Overall, 


2 Pickles

The young adult genre keeps pumping out mysteries and thrillers here lately and I am absolutely living for it! This was an all-consuming read and will be perfect for a reading binge, as you won't want to stop once you've started!

While I don’t believe I’m the target audience for this book it was pretty enjoyable.

“Monster on the Moors” follows Bobby Holmes who is on a holiday where he is anxious to meet up with his friends who are coming over from America but soon an ominous warning keeps him from enjoying his time away and it isn’t long before the group finds themselves lost in the night with nothing but the howling of the creature to keep them company.

I didn’t know this was a series when I requested it but thankfully there was a bit of a recap from the groups earlier adventures so you can get caught up fairly quickly.

This reads a bit like a Scooby Doo meets Sherlock Holmes only the supernatural elements are real which was an interesting touch. Here we have the classic monster on the moors or the werewolf mythology thrown in and it was interesting to see how the kids worked to solve the mystery at hand at the risk of being lost to it all.

I did think however that Bobby’s abilities would have been at the forefront of the plot itself but it’s more like the catalyst to each new story which was fine but I was hoping to see more especially when introduced to a character who seemed to have similar abilities.

This book isn’t bad but again I think it’s meant for a younger audience and I can think of quite a few people I’m going to recommend it to!

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review!**