Two Wolves Book Review

Author: Tristan Bancks

Genre: Crime Mystery

Summary
Two Wolves is a crime/mystery novel with secretiveness and
conflict as Ben wrestles with the physical world, the not-
knowingness of childhood and the slipperiness of truth. When his
parents whisk him and his younger sister away for a “holiday” he
has a suspicion there is more to the story than what they are
letting on.

One afternoon, police officers show up at Ben Silver’s front door. Minutes after they
leave, his parents arrive home. Ben and his little sister Olive are raced into the car and told
they’re going on a holiday. But it doesn’t take long for Ben to realise that his parents are
in trouble. He’s a chubby kid whose only desire is to finish his stop-motion movie and
hang out with his friends. His creativity gives him an escape from his real world, which isn’t
really all that exciting and is even quite depressing at times. He aspires to become a
detective when he grows up and uses his “skills” to deduce what his parents have gotten
themselves into, and why they are hiding out in his grandfather’s old cabin with a duffel
bag full of cash. He asks a lot of questions but is immediately shot down by his short-
tempered father. They can’t hide out forever, especially when the police are right on their
tails and now know about their hiding spot. Ben must flee with Olive into the dead of
night and take their chances that they’ll survive in the wilderness with no parents and lack
of experience.

Opinion/Review
In my opinion Two Wolves is suited for younger audiences such as grade 5 or 6. It doesn’t
contain any mature themes that I would have liked in a crime novel, apart from mild family
conflict. Ben is also hard to stay attached to and isn’t the most likable main character. Ben
is fleshed out and real, but I rarely find myself entertained by his humour, antics or quirks.
He is a let down by other, more complex characters in the immediate family. I feel like I'm
forcing myself to like him as I read, as he is the main character after all. The final fight
between Ben and his father seems to portray the wrong message from throughout the
book. Instead of Ben realising his dad’s insults and anger towards him shouldn’t be paid
attention to, he fixes every one of his insecurities since the start of the book. He has lost
weight and is fitter, is newly supplied with a masculine bravery, and it is almost as if he
could only win against his father now that these targets for bullying and tease were
removed, a contradictory message to the rest of the book. On a whole I think the
messages behind the book could have been better portrayed and that ben as a character
could have been written to be more likeable and relatable to the audience.