Thor is a good dog. He is bestest boy. He lives with the Pack (a human family) consisting of Tom (Dad) and Janet (Mom) and their three "pups" Teddy, Brett and Debbie, and a cat just named Kitty (real original there, family). Thor loves his Pack and sees himself as its protector, though often his protective instinct can cause him to act rashly, such as when attacks a salesman who Thor thinks is about to attack Janet, lunging and biting the man's leg. By the time Tom runs outside in response to all the barking and yelling, the situation has been resolved. Mostly. Although all Thor did was rip the guy's pants leg, the salesman, who is either very short-tempered and vengeful or was fishing for a lawsuit, begins threatening legal action unless he's paid a fuckton of cash up front... or if Tom and Janet have the dog destroyed. Tom, a lawyer, refuses and basically tells the guy to get lost and sends him packing.
Aside from that, though, the family's life is normal and fun. But all that is about to change.
Tom, Janet and their kids aren't the only members of the family. There's also Ted. Uncle Ted (for whom his oldest nephew was presumably named), once an avid outdoorsman and adventurer with a passion for wildlife photography, returned to American from a disastrous trip to Nepal... without his girlfriend Marjorie, another nature photographer who'd gone with him. To hear Ted tell it, he and Marjorie were attacked by something which dragged Marjorie away to her death. The skeptical Nepalese police made it very clear that Ted wasn't welcome in their country anymore and sent him packing... and upon returning to the States, Ted promptly moved into a remote house out in the middle of nowhere and cut off all contact with his family.
Janet is worried about him and browbeats her husband into taking the family out to go and see Ted. She thinks he's depressed over Marjorie's death. Thor is all for this. He doesn't entirely understand human language, but he knows names, and he loves Uncle Ted. Whenever Ted visited, he and Thor would play excitedly. But when the family actually gets to Ted's house, they find him gloomy and depressed... and even stranger, he, always a proponent of black and white photography over color, no longer takes black and white photos (when he does still take them), he's gotten rid of most of his old books, especially the ones about black and white photography, insisting he's only interested in color now... and on top of this he has a pair of very strong handcuffs he keeps with him at all times. The family notes all of this but is willing to overlook it considering what he's been through.
Thor finds himself slightly afraid of the guy. His demeanor is much different than Thor remembers, and in addition to the general gloomy mood and depression and other odd little things his human owners notice, there's more to Ted that only Thor can sense... and he doesn't like it. It isn't enough to make him actively dislike Ted, and there are moments where Ted does act very much like the Ted Thor remembers, and so for now, he is willing to file it away for later. After all, the Pack seem like they trust Ted, so why shouldn't he? Then Thor, while running around outside, finds the dead woman in the woods. Of course, he lacks words to lead anyone to her, but it doesn't matter; in short order, the corpse is discovered. She's been brutally mauled to death. The police rule it an animal attack. Janet, freaking out at the idea of some kind of wild animal living nearby, demands Ted come and stay with them. Ted is reluctant, but Janet browbeats him into agreeing to come. Thor is excited but apprehensive.
Once Ted settles in, things start getting weirder. Ted rarely goes out, spending most of his time moping in his room. Thor also begins to sense that something evil is coming. The way he interprets it is that it's some physical thing coming towards the house from outside. He calls it the "Bad Thing." There's also a bizarre and very bad scent out in the woods. He smelled something similar when he found the dead woman in the woods near Ted's house. He calls this the "Wild Animal," and begins to suspect that the Bad Thing and the Wild Animal are the same thing and that the thing is somehow connected to Ted. Is it stalking Ted? Has Ted brought something dangerous to the Pack's home, threatening Thor's beloved family? He starts acting aggressively towards Ted, angering Tom, who starts wondering if him biting the salesman's leg earlier wasn't just a one-time thing. What if Thor is turning bad...?
Then one night, during a full moon, Thor manages to get outside and follows Ted as he leaves the house and goes wandering in the woods, carrying the pair of handcuffs he owns with him. Even though Thor suspects Ted is somehow responsible for bringing the Bad Thing to their doorstep, Thor still loves him; as a member of the family, he is, after all, part of the Pack, and whether he brought the Bad Thing here or not, Thor is determined to protect him from it. Ted quickly outdistances him. Not that he knows the dog is following him, but rather because he is suddenly acting as though he's becoming... invigorated somehow, racing wildly through the dark, moonlit forest. Thor can track his scent, though. But soon Ted's smell disappears. It just stops dead... and is replaced with the stink of the Bad Thing/Wild Animal. Fearing that the thing, whatever it is, has gotten Ted, Thor races bravely ahead...
...and gets the shock of his life.
An enormous wolf has been handcuffed to a tree. Except it isn't a wolf. Not exactly. It has a human build and his wearing clothes. Ted's, to be precise. Its eyes are also eerily human, which makes Thor's fur stand on end. Although the thing growls menacingly at him, the handcuffs are very strong and keep the creature secured to the tree. Thor can't figure it out. Clearly, this is the Bad Thing, some kind of wolf monster. But where is Ted...? Clearly, Ted subdued and chained the monster, but why did he put his clothes on it? What would be the purpose of that? Thor has seen humans do some strange things in his life, some of which he can understand, and some he can't. This fits squarely into the latter category... and it's the strangest thing yet. Thor can tell the Bad Thing is vicious and dangerous. Having somehow managed to overpower it and cuff it, why on Earth would Ted risk injury and death to dress the thing in his own clothes? Once more, Thor lacks the words to tell the Pack exactly what it is he's found; he can't get Tom, who comes looking for him, to follow him into the woods to see the Bad Thing. But since the thing is chained to the tree, Thor is content to leave it alone for now since it can't get free and hurt anyone, so he returns to the house with Tom. Ted reappears the following day, his usual grumpy self, and when Thor goes back out into the forest, the Bad Thing isn't handcuffed to the tree anymore.
Things begin unraveling fast for Thor. Remember that salesman? Despite Ted sending him packing, he's gotten a high-priced lawyer and is reiterating his demand for money or else he'll have Thor put to sleep. The family is resolved to fight it tooth and nail, but Tom begins worrying that the dog might in fact be exactly the danger that the guy suing the family says he is. There's when he snapped at Ted. And then there's what happens to the family's cat, found torn to bits in the yard on the night after another full moon. Tom is initially doubtful that Thor did it... but the more he thinks about it, the more he wonders. And then there's the fact that Thor's attitude towards Ted has only gotten worse. He follows him everywhere and does not like it whenever he's left alone with the rest of the family. And Ted has begin subtly antagonizing the dog, as though trying to goad him somehow.
Because Thor has hit upon a flash of inspiration. He has figured something out, you see. Being a smart dog, he's finding that he is capable of a limited form of deductive reasoning. Specifically, he notices an injury on Ted's ankle which the Bad Thing also had, and in that instant, everything changes. Ted didn't bring the Bad Thing here. He is the Bad Thing. Thor doesn't know how this is possible, he knows nothing about werewolves, but once he connects Ted's injury to the Bad Thing's everything falls into place, and Thor realizes he must warn his beloved family that their favorite uncle is not what he appears to be. Not anymore. Something happened to him in Nepal... and he returned to America a very, very different man. Thor's inability to speak continues hampering his efforts to see to his family's defense, and so he decides to take more direct action. But he's got his work cut out for him, because Ted knows that he knows and is determined that the dog not give away his terrible secret. And then there's that salesman, still hellbent on having Thor put down for ripping his pants. Danger to the left, trouble to the right, and Tom thinking the beloved family pet is slowly turning violent...
Can Thor deal with the fact a werewolf is living with the family before it's too late and Ted kills one of the kids? He already killed the cat and that woman out where he used to lived. Can he deal with the problem before Ted makes his move, or the authorities come to confiscate Ted? Before the vengeful salesman gets his diabolical wish and has Thor taken away, leaving the family defenseless against the vile monster they've unwittingly invited into their midst...?
Thor was adapted into a movie, Bad Moon.
It's mostly faithful to the book, though decided to focus more on the family than Thor (who is the novel's P.O.V. character), though Thor remains an important character. It also adapts out half the family. Tom is gone, as are two of the three kids. The choice of which kid to keep is odd; Eric Red decided to go with Brett, the middle child, despite the fact Brett is the one with the least personality (all he ever does is mimic his older brother; whatever Teddy wants, Brett wants too). Though I suspect it's less that Red used Brett and more that it's Teddy with his brother's name, likely because Red didn't want two characters in the same story named Ted. There's two other changes I do wanna talk about.
Firstly, the family now has a last name. Because Thor is told from the title character's P.O.V., he has no concept of last names. Annoyingly, even in one of the very few parts of the book told from the humans' P.O.V., we still don't learn their last name; even though a process server representing the salesman's lawyer, when serving Tom, does actually actually call him by his full name... but we don't here it. The way Smith writes the scene, he has the process server's dialogue just... stop as he says the name, with "and he said Tom's first, middle and last name." I hate this. It's so artificial. Why, exactly, can't we know the family's name, Wayne? Oh well, the movie sorta fixes this by giving them the surname Harrison. I say sorta because Ted also has the last name Harrison, despite the fact he's Janet's, not Tom's, brother. And since Tom has been adapted out, this means either Janet had Brett out of wedlock, or she and Tom got divorced. Oh well, it isn't a big deal.
And lastly, there's our friend the litigious, lawsuit-happy salesman. He's nameless in the book (apart from an embarrassing nickname Tom gives him), and even though the threat he poses to Thor (suing the family, trying to have him destroyed, etc.) is meant to provide a ticking clock of sorts (Thor has to solve the werewolf problem before the lawsuit goes through), he never appears again, and the entire problem ends up neatly (too neatly for my liking) being resolved in a phone call between Tom and the salesman's lawyer at the end (this is the only part of the book I'll spoil; the salesman never gets any comeuppance for being such a short-tempered and vindictive prick). This is another plot element the movie improves on. Eric Red had two choices; drop the salesman character entirely or give him a bigger role. He went with the latter (giving him a name, too; Jerry Mills). He does very much get exactly what's coming to him. I don't always advocate for villains and jerks to get killed, but this guy pissed me enough reading the novel I was angry when the werewolf didn't get him.
Anyway. A pretty good idea for a book, executed a little clumsily, but still very much worth your time. The movie too.
