As a rakshasa, he needs lots of meat, he feeds on strong emotions, and he has to be near tigers. When they determine that Rafael doesn’t want to prey on anyone, he just wants to return to America, they help him out.

Rafael is an American college student on vacation in India who is captured and enslaved by a Rakshasa (Van Stry sometimes capitalizes it) and is turned into one himself.Įleven years later Rafael escapes to American Catholic missionaries in India, and is turned over by them to Mark and Jake. In Van Stry’s novel, it’s a tiger-striped shape-shifter who can turn into a tiger ( not a were-tiger the distinction becomes important in the story) that happens to be a good guy. Mark and his French partner Jake are minor characters in The King of Las Vegas, which features a rakshasa.Ī traditional rakshasa is an Indian (Hindustani) demon, usually described as a huge fanged cannibal who can shape-shift and live hundreds of years. Three of the four feature Mark Levin, a demon-devil-monster-vampire hunter for the FBI and Interpol who is a monster himself. They are set in a world where demons, devils, monsters, and vampires are real. John Van Stry has written four Hammer Commission novels The Hammer Commission, Wolf Killer, Loose Ends, and The King of Las Vegas. Seattle, WA, CreateSpace, March 2016, trade paperback $10.99 (234 pages), Kindle $3.99. Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Wolf Killer by John Van Stry