"Refreshing rendition of "The Most Dangerous Game""

In an isolated section of woods in Maine billionaire computer guru Ty Winsloe incarcerates so called mythological creatures in a glass prison. He employs two witches and a shaman to help him find his prey. Once he catches a victim, his hired scientists study the captive before releasing the prisoner into the wild. Finally Ty as a predator and his hounds hunt the otherworldly individuals.

His current target is a werewolf and his choice amongst that species is its only known female Elena. Witches warn Elena of the coming danger and actually rescue her from an abduction attempt by Ty's thugs. However, the die has been set as Ty plans to cage Elena, allow his scientists to study her and ultimately free his prisoner so he can hunt and kill her. However, he will find the she-werewolf will not give up easily.

STOLEN, the sequel to the delightful, BITTEN, is a refreshing rendition of "The Most Dangerous Game", except that the quarry in this novel is the supernatural beings. The key to this strong story line is that the varying mythical creatures seem so genuine especially when the scientists classify the species in a taxonomy that Carl Linnaeus would endorse. Elena retains her bite from the first novel while Ty is an ideal predator playing a live "video" game with his chosen victims. Kelley Armstrong provides a tremendous "Women of the Otherworld" novel that horror and thriller fans will value.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 16, 2003

Summary

International acclaim for Kelley Armstrong's sophisticated debut novel, Bitten, is steadily growing. It was in Bitten that thirty-year-old Elena Michaels came to terms with her feral appetites and claimed the proud identity of a beautiful, successful woman-and the only living female werewolf. In Stolen, on a mission for her own elite pack, she is lured into the net of ruthless Internet billionaire Tyrone Winsloe, who has funded a bogus scientific investigation of the "other races" and their supernatural powers. Kidnapped and studied in his underground lab deep in the Maine woods, these paranormals-witches, vampires, shamans, werewolves- are then released and hunted to the death in a real-world video game. But when Winsloe captures Elena, he meets his match. Suspenseful, chilling, and witty, Stolen is a novel of rich and amazing versatility.