t's 1850 and thousands of pioneers are headed west. Among them is the McKensie family. Their dream of a new life in California ends suddenly when a stranger walks into their camp and shoots Rachel and William McKensie.
Several days later, gold prospector Max Phillips discovers the bodies, along with an unfinished letter from Rachel McKensie to her sister back east. The letter mentions Rachel's three-year-old daughter, but there is no sign of the child's body at the campsite. Max and a motley band of miners search in vain for the little girl.
Alone in the wilderness, Sarah would surely die if not for a she-wolf named Wauna, whose newborn pups have been slaughtered by the same man who killed Sarah's parents. The grieving wolf adopts Sarah, who is accepted as an equal, if decidedly odd, member of Wauna's pack. Though Sarah lacks the speed, fangs and keen sense of smell of her packmates, she more than makes up for it with her intelligence. Armed with a scavenged hunting knife, Sarah becomes a formidable hunter.
Over the years a legend emerges about a savage child often seen in the company of wolves. Max wonders if this semi-mythical "wild angel" could be the long-lost Sarah McKensie. Max mounts a new search for the girl, hoping to rescue Sarah and reunite her with relatives. He's aided by a prosperous local businessman named Jasper Davis, whose motives are entirely different.
Jasper is concerned that there may yet be a living eyewitness to his past crimes.
Golden Age pulp adventure
History records various accounts of "feral children" found living in the wild. Some may actually have been raised by wolves. Wild Angel, however, does not pretend to be a realistic depiction of the life of a feral child. Murphy originally planned to call the novel "Sarah of the Wolves," acknowledging her debt to Edgar Rice Burroughs's stories of Tarzan of the Apes.
Wild Angel, like the Tarzan stories, is pure fantasy, but Murphy spins her tale with such conviction that it's not hard to believe that an adolescent wolf girl could subdue a grizzly with little more than her bare hands. The writing evokes the pulp magazines of the '20s and '30s, but with a sophistication that recaptures the excitement and wide-eyed innocence of the pulps without seeming quaint or self-consciously retro.
After a while, Sarah's exploits--aiding travelers in distress like a one-woman, 19th-century AAA--begin to feel like a television series pilot, an amalgam of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. But, before Sarah outstays her welcome, the story builds to a rousing finale, replete with a traveling circus, heartwarming unions and reunions, a harrowing battle between Sarah and her pack's new alpha male, and Sarah's long-awaited showdown with that no-good murderin' dog, Jasper Davis.
Finally, as Sarah's wolf howl echoes across the moonlit hills, one might think a TV series about Sarah could be pretty cool if the episodes were half as much fun as this book. But that's stretching credibility past the breaking point.
