The House of Wolves

The House of Wolves was published in 2023 and is a collaboration between James Patterson and the longtime sportswriter Mike Lupica. The premise is built around the Wolf family, owners of the San Francisco Tribune newspaper and the city's NFL franchise, the Wolves. When patriarch Joe Wolf dies suddenly under suspicious circumstances, his estranged daughter Jenny inherits everything. Her brothers, who had assumed they would be running the empire, are not happy about this turn of events, and the rest of the novel follows Jenny trying to figure out who killed her father while also keeping a media company and a football team from being torn out from under her.

The Patterson Lupica partnership has worked well across several books because their strengths complement each other. Patterson handles the thriller scaffolding and the relentless pacing, with the short chapters and frequent point of view shifts his readers expect. Lupica brings actual sportswriting authority to the football and newspaper sections of the novel. Anyone who has read Lupica's columns or his earlier novels can hear his voice in the boardroom scenes and the locker room dialogue.

The Wolf family is meant to feel like a fictionalized version of the kind of NFL ownership family you read about in real news stories. Heir disputes, succession drama, complicated marriages, money everywhere and trust nowhere. Jenny is a strong protagonist, more nuanced than Patterson's standalones sometimes allow, and the tension between her and her brothers carries the middle of the book. The mystery of who killed Joe takes some satisfying turns even if the final reveal will not surprise the most seasoned thriller readers.

For fans of Patterson's standalones or of family corporate dramas, this is a strong recommendation. Sports fans get an extra layer they will appreciate.