Katipo Joe: Wolf’s Lair

Brian Falkner is a brilliant writer from Aotearoa New Zealand, and particularly in engaging those hard to reach demographic - the difficult young boy readers. If action and adventure are on the menu for these targeted young readers, then Brian Falkner offers these characteristics in spades. Taking the premise of World War II, and a young New Zealand spy who works inside the German lines to bring down the worst that humanity has to offer, and you have the recipe for something that both offers lessons in history, and fills up the cup of intrigue and interest.

Katipo Joe - Wolf’s Lair is the third in the Katipo Joe series, and each has been a real triumph of YA fiction and offers so much depth to the character without over complicating the narrative. Like other series, readers feel a real sense of growing up alongside the characters as they endure hardships, and find strength in the connections within others, and within themselves.

In the opening to the novel, Falkner addresses the inclusion of Adolf Hitler as a central character, after all - he says - while the figure does appear in the previous two iterations, it is only in Wolf’s Lair that he becomes a part of the story. However, the treatment of this historical figure is brilliantly executed. Falkner takes the historically accurate portrayal and brings it into the language and features of a YA text that is accessible and wonderfully intriguing. It is good to see that some of the more difficult aspects of the World War II facts are not shied away from, they are treated with dignity and respect for those who suffered.

Definitely an effective text for engaging those hard to reach readers who are looking for a story that captivates the imagination, and takes the reader into the heart of one of the most challenging eras in human history. Long live Katipo Joe.

Title: Katipo Joe: Wolf’s Lair

Author: Brian Falkner

RRP: $18.00

Publisher: Scholastic

ISBN: 9781775437482

Publication: 2022

Format: Paperback

Ages 12+

Reviewer: Chris Reed

Recommendation: Recommended

Opening line: The carpenter arrived early for dinner and a beer, the last of the blasting cartridges concealed in a battered, but otherwise inconspicuous leather suitcase.

You can buy this book here.