The House of Wolves

Jack Wolf is the oldest of the Wolf children and one of the primary antagonists in The House of Wolves. He is in his early forties and is described as “the dark knight of the Wolf family” (65). Jack’s defining characteristics are his willingness to reject journalistic standards in his quest for power and money. At the beginning of the novel, he is the publisher of The San Francisco Tribune, which is the newspaper owned by his family. Although the Tribune is the city’s most conservative paper, Jack “didn’t think it was conservative enough. Or loud enough. Or nearly down and dirty enough” (15). When Jenny removes Jack from his position, he founds Wolf.com, an alternative news source aimed at those who don’t trust mainstream media. The novel indicates that Jack’s real interest is not journalism, but the power that owning a newspaper gives him. Jack had “always been addicted [to] power” (180), and he “loved, and needed, to be a boss” (180). Ultimately, Jack’s desire for power leads to him being controlled by John Gallo.

Danny Wolf is the second Wolf brother and the president of the San Francisco Wolves, the professional football teamed owned by the Wolf family. He is described as having “fair” hair and skin, though “splotches of red” appear on his face “since he was a little boy, every time he got upset or didn’t get his way” (54). Danny begins the novel as an antagonist to Jenny, aligned with his brother Jack. He is responsible for helping Jack leak information about the death of DeLavarious Harmon and blaming their little brother Thomas for it. In the second half of the novel, however, Danny decides that, after a lifetime of “being pushed around by [his] father” (139), he is not “going to get pushed around by [his] brother” (139). He tells Jenny that after Thomas’s death, he “finally got tired of being on the wrong side” of the family dispute (304). Jenny decides to trust Danny, although the novel never specifies if he is truly honest in his intentions.

Thomas Wolf is the youngest of the Wolf sons and the manager of the San Francisco Wolves. His death is the catalyst for Jenny’s decision to resist John Gallo’s takeover of the team at all costs. Jenny describes Thomas as looking like “an aging frat boy” (79). At the time the novel begins, Thomas is just “six months out of rehab” after “spending too much of his adult life drugging and partying” (19). Addiction rehabilitation services have vastly improved his life, and Thomas is determined to never relapse. He is described as being funny and smart, and Detective Ben Cantor describes him has having “an intelligence in his eyes, an almost cool sort of irony to his general attitude, as if the joke was on you” (79). Although Jenny loves Thomas, she admits that he is not perfect and is prone to lying to cover up his mistakes and avoid uncomfortable situations. He also has a violent streak, and as a teenager, he “fantasized about throwing his father off the Golden Gate Bridge” (238). Though this initially casts him as a suspect in his father’s murder, Thomas ends up getting murdered himself when he discovers that John Gallo and Michael Barr were behind the plot that killed Joe Wolf.

Ben Cantor is the San Francisco Police Department detective who is investigating the murders of Joe Wolf and Thomas Wolf. He is Jenny’s main romantic interest. Cantor is described as being a good looking man who is “probably in his early forties” (65). He is tall with graying hair. Cantor’s primary role in the narrative is to guide the reader through the mystery of Joe and Thomas Wolf’s deaths: As Cantor uncovers clues, the reader is able to connect individual strands of the mystery. Cantor is characterized by his mutual attraction to Jenny, which impedes his investigation. Throughout the investigation, Cantor “couldn’t escape how attracted he was to her” (227). Although he knows that the suspect list includes Jenny, “Cantor didn’t want it to […] [and] in his mind it really didn’t” include her (309). Jenny is similarly attracted to him and finds it difficult to lie to him. Ultimately, Cantor’s attraction to Jenny costs him his job since he is fired after they are photographed kissing.

Ryan Morrissey is the head coach of the San Francisco Wolves and a potential romantic interest for Jenny Wolf. He is described as a good-looking man. Morrissey has a tumultuous history with the Wolves: He had been a popular assistant in the league who was expected to have an impressive career, but he had punched his boss during an argument, prompting Joe Wolf to fire him. Jenny hires him back when she takes over. Although Morrissey “had never been good enough to make it as a starting quarterback in the league itself” (87), he is an effective coach, leading the Wolves to their first playoffs in years. Morrissey and Jenny are romantically linked when he is photographed spending the night at her house. Ironically, he is only there because he and Jenny are brainstorming how to respond to allegations that he sexually harassed another woman. As a potential romantic interest for Jenny, Morrissey acts as a foil to Ben Cantor, who is a more risky choice for Jenny.

John Gallo is the Wolf family’s long-time business rival and the primary antagonist of The House of Wolves. Throughout the novel, he fights Jenny for ownership of the San Francisco Wolves. Gallo is described as “tall and silver-haired and far more tanned than San Franciscans were supposed to be” (21). He is characterized by his violence and his association with the mafia underground. Jenny recalls her father describing Gallo as “more mobbed up […] than a boxed set of The Sopranos” (21), referring to the 1997-2007 television show focused on New Jersey mafia families. When they meet at her father’s funeral, Jenny calls Gallo a “slick bastard.” He retaliates by threatening her with the same fate as her father. Although Gallo is the antagonist who directly interacts with Jenny, the final chapters of the novel reveal that he is working for Michael Barr, a shadowy arms dealer who is “the only man from who John Gallo took orders and feared” (284). Ultimately, Gallo is killed by Barr’s henchman, Erik Mason.

Michael Barr is a criminal businessman introduced in the novel’s final chapters, when it is revealed that he is the one funding John Gallo’s attempts to take over the San Francisco Wolves. He is described as a “small, trim man with close-cropped white hair, partial to black suits and black shirts” that match his dark eyes (336). Barr is “a prominent and respected member of San Francisco society” and had formed “foundations for the homeless and abused women” (335). Because of this, he is able to disguise the fact that he is also “one of the most powerful and ruthless private arms dealers in the world” (335). Barr has no interest in football but believes that owning a team would give him the “chance to control a city in a way that no private citizen ever has in all the city’s history” (337). In order to achieve this goal, he murders Joe Wolf, John Gallo, and likely Thomas Wolf, too.