[In the following review, Cadogan questions several inconsistencies in the plot of A Walk in Wolf Wood but praises the novel overall for its subtlety and cleverness.]

In A Walk in Wolf Wood Mary Stewart continues her preoccupation with issues that have been central to her recent Arthurian novels for adults. The eerie events that overtake two down-to-earth twentieth-century children become the vehicle for an incisive exploration of magic, savagery and the mis-uses of power.

On holiday with their parents in Germany, John and Margaret Begbie are suddenly projected from the drowsy stillness of a perfectly ordinary summer's afternoon into a stark world of medieval sorcery and intrigue. They are in the Black Forest and their slip backwards in time takes place when curiosity and concern prompt them to follow a distressed man into the woods. He is "weeping bitterly"—and with good cause. The children discover that the stranger, Lord Mardian, is in the grip of a terrible enchantment put upon him by a rival at the ducal court. By day he is a sensitive, tormented and guilt-ridden man who lives in hiding from his sorcerer enemy, and at night he has to roam the forest, transformed into a slavering, bloodlusting wolf.

At first John and Margaret think that they are acting out a dream, but they are soon made aware of being caught up, although only peripherally, in the spell that binds Mardian. They come to the awesome realization that by voluntarily grappling with great and unspecified dangers they may be able to release him from his enchantment. Of course they do not hesitate; they prove, as so many other fictional heroes and heroines have done, that two plucky and resourceful children can be a match for the most malevolent of medieval sorcerers. But A Walk in Wolf Wood is not by any means all magic and moonshine. Once the basic premise has been accepted the characters are skilfully manipulated through a series of challenges, and from one level of apparent reality to another, without irritating or mind-bending complexities. The trappings of another time like jousts and hunts, terraces and towers, are vivid and atmospheric but not overdone. They are harnessed with other energized effects to create a convincing buildup of suspense, and at the right moments the gothic mood of dark green forest gloom is lightened by wit and warmth.

This is, in a sense, a holiday-adventure story and appropriately the main narrative movement is vigorous and direct. There are also, however, satisfying descriptions of natural beauty and of resonances between the children's inner experiences and the externals that they observe. (A bird's sudden flight out of a clump of trees, for example, heightens a not quite definable sense of psychological unease and menace.)

There is no doubt about the power and persuasiveness of A Walk in Wolf Wood, but it is slightly flawed by inconsistencies in the time-shift from which the action of the story derives. John and Margaret accept this startling process in a low-key and very practical manner. They are concerned about the kind of clothes they should wear to enable them best to fit into their new surroundings; after some initial shocks they take werewolves, sinister magicians and palace settings in their stride; they adopt the speech and manners of the time without conscious effort, although they are a little surprised at their fluency in a foreign tongue—and a medieval one at that. They occasionally discuss the anomalous aspects of their adventures, but explain these away by concluding that they are all part of the spell. It is possible, however, that some readers may not so easily be able to dismiss some of the inconsistencies—although these in themselves suggest several stimulating areas of speculation and enquiry.