Michael Gallatin Books In Order

Publication Order of Michael Gallatin Books

Michael Gallatin, the protagonist in Robert McCammon novels is a British spy who also happens to be a werewolf, which gives him some peculiar abilities. Robert McCammon is an American novelist famous for his works in the American horror genre. A popular author in the genre, McCammon published his first novel Baal in 1978, and has gone on to publish numerous titles and series that have achieved commercial success. The character Michael Gallatin is the protagonist in two of McCammon’s most popular series of novels – The Michael Gallatin Series. The novels center on Michael’s work as a retired British spy asked to come out of retirement to infiltrate occupied Paris before D-Day.

We are first introduced to Michael Gallatin in the 1989 novel, The Wolf Hour. The novel follows Michael as he comes out of his quiet retirement and parachutes into Paris as a spy. Each novel gives more insights into Gallatin’s personality and motivations, allowing the reader to connect with the character. As a former spy, he had worked in North Africa during World War II helping the allies take over the important region, which had been occupied by Nazi forces. He is forced to quit the service, when he finds his lover shot in bed by a German spy. As a boy, he lived with his parents with his parents and sister in Russia and was witness to their brutal murder. The flashbacks to his life in Russia before and after a werewolf bit him provide valuable insights into his motivations. An immigrant success story, he moves from living in Russia’s remote forests to becoming an elite spy for the British spy agencies. However, his life comes crashing down after he is unable to deal with the trauma of the brutal murder of his lover in North Africa.

It is not until several chapters into the novel Wolf Hour that the reader learns that Gallatin quit the service due to being unable to deal with his grief. Having witnessed the brutal murder of his parents in Russia, it was too much having to live through the grief of losing perhaps the only one person close to family that he had. He retreats to a quiet life of office service, hoping never to experience such violence ever again.

Gallatin lives alone in London, where he is recovering from his early World War II experiences. His lover was killed before the book was written. McCammon does a great job in making Michael Gallatin a very likable and relatable character. Fearlessly devoted to his cause, the character is painted as the stereotypical Special Forces agent that we have come to love for his fierce loyalty and dedication in their service for country. Coming up with believable characters has always been one of McCammon’s best strengths.

A favorite with women, Michael Gallatin is a passionate lover that can sweep almost any woman he meets off her feet. It is too bad that he had to discover the brutal murder of his lover just when his life was just beginning to turn around. He now has the opportunity to right the wrongs against him, by destroying the German’s plans to disrupt the D-Day invasion. Even better, he can get his vengeance since the German spy that betrayed his lover is the officer in charge of the secret Iron Fist Plan by the Nazis.

In 2014, Universal Pictures announced that the Michael Gallatin character would feature in a film adaptation of the book The Wolf’s Hour. It will be produced by Emile Gladstone and Chris Morgan of the Fast and Furious franchise. Kevin Marcus was responsible for the scripting and fleshing out of the novel for the film adaptation.

The Wolf Hour

Written in 1989, the narrative traces the World War II hero Michael Gallatin as he moves to North Africa, back to Europe and a flashback to his childhood in Russia. By interweaving all these storylines, McCammon keeps the reader engrossed in the extraordinary story of daring missions to extract information from dangerous war situations. He does all this while keeping the reader informed of the motivations of the character.

As the title suggests, this is no ordinary protagonist as he is a werewolf with abilities none of the other spies have. This fact makes for an original and interesting tale and transforms what would have been a boring boy’s war story into a supernatural and twisted story of a hero that uses his powers for good.

As the story unfolds, Gallatin finds himself facing up to nasty villains, the most vile of which is a scientist and high ranking official in the German army with sadistic tendencies. He has to harness all of his abilities, and experiences honed over the years if he is to infiltrate the Nazi war machine. However, he is not alone, as McCammon gives him a motley crew of associates and mysterious and fascinating women all determined to help his cause. With D-Day approaching and everything riding on Michael Gallatin finding out about the Iron Fist Plan, they must do all they can for vengeance and country.

The Hunter from the Woods

In the second Michael Gallatin novel, The Hunter from the Woods, Gallatin makes his much-anticipated return to action. McCamon as expected does a good job of creating a web of interlinked stories that are full of his originality, and narrative excitement. The novel starts out with a flashback on Michael’s childhood in Russia, and his recruitment into the elite British Secret Service. It culminates in a vision of Gallatin as a werewolf in grey twilight.

Written in three volumes, the author gives us a glimpse into three different phases of the protagonist’s long fight of vengeance against the Nazis. Sea Chase is a tale of the high seas travails that dog the transportation of a German scientist who is seeking asylum in the UK. Eagle and The Wolf are tales of an unlikely friendship between elite rival spies forced into an uneasy truce, when they have to march through the punishing North African desert. The last story Room at the Bottom of the Stairs is a narrative of a tragic love affair between Michael and Frenziska, a high-ranking counter-intelligence officer of the Nazi high command, during the closing stages of the war for Berlin.

Visceral, erotic, and full of excitement and horror, the Hunter from the Woods makes a good case for McCammon as one of the best historical horror writers out there. Similar to his previous works, McCammon skillfully provides excellent entertainment in an intelligent and thrilling tale that is so believable. He accomplishes all this while portraying the expected hero story in a very original narrative.