52 pages • 1 hour read
James Patterson, Mike LupicaThe House of Wolves
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 64-89Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 64 Summary
Cantor reviews his notes from a conversation with Thomas’s best friend, Patrick Tate. Tate reveals that Thomas fantasized about killing his father. Thomas also believed that his namesake uncle did not die in a car crash; rather, he was murdered.
Chapter 65 Summary
Danny meets with Gallo before the owners’ vote, furious about Jenny’s surprise interview with Oprah. Gallo orders Danny to finish Jenny before the vote. As Danny leaves, he sees Erlich enter Gallo’s office.
Chapter 66 Summary
Just as Gallo and Jenny’s brothers feared, the Oprah interview focuses on Jenny’s unfair treatment in the male-dominated NFL. After the interview airs, Jenny receives a bouquet of flowers that Thomas had ordered for her before he died.
Chapter 67 Summary
Jenny attends the owners’ reception without Erlich. The other owners treat her coldly, so she leaves with LA Chargers owner Clay Rosen. Rosen says he’ll vote for her but warns that she won’t win.
Chapter 68 Summary
Cantor attempts to reach Jenny but can’t. After searching through Thomas’s cell phone records, Cantor realizes that Thomas visited Jack on the night he died. He drives to Jack’s house to demand an explanation.
Chapter 69 Summary
As Jenny and Clay flirt over drinks at the Polo Lounge, Rosen explains that the older coaches will not approve her, despite what some may think. Commissioner Abrams, Ted Skyler, and Patriots owner AJ Frost interrupt them.
Chapter 70 Summary
Ted reveals that he has signed with the Patriots. Commissioner Abrams and AJ Frost urge Jenny to give up before the vote. As the group is leaving, Jenny whispers something in Frost’s ear.
Chapter 71 Summary
Cantor calls Jenny with news: Jack claims his final conversation with Thomas was not an argument and that it ended amicably. Both Cantor and Jenny think Jack is lying. Cantor reveals Thomas made one additional stop that night.
Chapter 72 Summary
In her final plea before the vote, Jenny tells the owners that she is not the woman they’ve seen on TV, but simply her father’s daughter. She reads them a letter from her father in which he urges her to never give up the team.
Chapter 73 Summary
After reading the letter, Jenny leaves the owners’ meeting without speaking. Clay follows her out, and she reveals that the letter was fake. When Rosen expresses surprise, Jenny reminds him that she is her father’s daughter.
Chapter 74 Summary
The next morning, Danny calls Gallo with news that the vote is expected to go in their favor. Gallo warns Danny that their plan must work. He wishes there was a way that he, and not the commissioner, could share the news with Jenny.
Chapter 75 Summary
On the morning of the vote, Jenny wanders around Beverly Hills anxiously, waiting for news. Erlich tells her that even if she loses, she will still be famous. Jenny is unexpectedly summoned by Patriots owner AJ Frost.
Chapter 76 Summary
The oldest owners are gathered in Frost’s suite; Jenny expects them not to vote for her. After briefly criticizing her attitude and her way of conducting business, the men reveal that they will, in fact, be voting for Jenny to maintain ownership.
Chapter 77 Summary
Clay asks Jenny out for a celebratory drink after the successful vote, but she turns him down. He promises they’ll meet again. Later, Jenny receives a single rose with a note reading, “You’re welcome.”
Chapter 78 Summary
Cantor visits Elise Wolf, Joe’s first wife and the mother of the Wolf siblings. She is prickly and uninterested in him and Jenny’s successful vote. He demands to know why she didn’t tell him she saw Thomas on the night of his death.
Chapter 79 Summary
Infuriated by Jenny’s success, Gallo meets with his chief of security, Erik Mason. The men brainstorm ways to take down Jenny by hurting those around her. Mason proposes going after her high school football team.
Chapter 80 Summary
Cantor explains to Jenny that her mother also seems to be lying: Her story is aligned with Jack’s, but not aligned with what Thomas told Jenny. Jenny receives a phone call from Coach Morrissey, who says he cannot find Money McGee.
Chapter 81 Summary
Morrissey explains that McGee had agreed to check in with him twice a night. After he missed a check-in, Morrissey contacted McGee’s wife, who said he was missing. Jenny then receives a call from McGee saying he is not okay.
Chapter 82 Summary
Cantor and Jenny drive to the location of McGee’s cell phone; it turns out to be a restaurant where he had dinner. Morrissey is waiting for them there. McGee calls again, and the group discovers that he is in a building across the street.
Chapter 83 Summary
McGee is badly beaten and surrounded by drugs. At Cantor’s insistence, McGee is quickly removed from the room and taken to the stadium to see the team’s doctor. As they arrive, Jenny receives a news alert.
Chapter 84 Summary
Wolf.com has just published pictures of McGee unconscious and surrounded by drugs. McGee insists he was set up. Cantor arranges for McGee and his wife to hide at a hotel in Napa. Jenny receives a note warning her that this is just the beginning.
Chapter 85 Summary
McGee remains in hiding, which annoys Wolf.com and the mainstream media. Soon after, the quarterback of Hunters Point High is mugged, leading Jenny to suspect she and her connections are being targeted. Nevertheless, the Hunters Point team remains undefeated and wins their championship.
Chapter 86 Summary
Danny approaches Jenny to ask for the job of manager of the Wolves. He tells Jenny that Gallo is out of control and in over his head. Jenny replies that she doesn’t trust Danny. However, when he starts to leave, she tells him to stay.
Chapter 87 Summary
With Cantor’s permission, Jenny leaks a story to the Tribune about Jack being a person of interest in Joe Wolf’s murder and disclosing that he is facing an obstruction of justice charge for lying. Jack promises to get his revenge, and Jenny warns him that she is only beginning.
Chapter 88 Summary
Cantor and Jenny go out for dinner for their third date. Although Cantor is reluctant to admit it, Jenny is still a suspect in her father’s murder. He teases her about the status of their relationship. When Jenny asks about the case, he confronts her about seeing her father the night he died.
Chapter 89 Summary
Jenny admits that she saw her father, explaining that he was drunk and apologetic, and she told him to leave. She is insulted that she is still a suspect and gets ready to leave the restaurant. Cantor asks if she is hiding anything else. She lies and says no.
Chapters 64-89 Analysis
This section of The House of Wolves develops both major and minor characters, revealing surprising details about their personalities and actions that, in turn, build suspense. For instance, Jenny Wolf is revealed to be almost as manipulative as the rest of her family, including her brother Jack and her mother Elise. Chapter 68 reveals that Jack lied to Cantor about seeing Thomas on the day of his death. Jack’s mother Elise also lies to Cantor about seeing Thomas that day, and Cantor believes that “she and Jack got their stories lined up” before speaking to him (286). As he shares his theories with Jenny, Cantor jokes that he “can’t keep track of the liars in [her] family without a scorecard” (286). Unbeknown to Cantor and the reader, Jenny has also been lying to him about the investigation. When Cantor catches her in her lies, she admits to having seen her father the night he died; however, she finds herself lying to Cantor again and saying she doesn’t have anything else to disclose about the murder case. Jenny’s willingness to lie to Cantor even as their romantic relationship progresses indicates that she is more like her scheming, lying family than she is willing to admit.
These chapters also show that Bobby Erlich, the crisis management consultant recommended by Jenny’s mysterious uncle, is unreliable and fame-hungry. At the end of Chapter 65, Danny sees Erlich entering a meeting with Gallo, who is Jenny’s primary antagonist. The novel picks up this narrative thread in Chapter 71, when Erlich admits to Jenny that he “ran into a potential client” (265). Later, Erlich tries to convince Jenny that it doesn’t matter whether she wins the owners’ vote, telling her that “even if you lose, you win, because you’re going to be more famous than ever” (274). Chapter 79 then reveals that Erlich had gone to Gallo to reassure him that Jenny would not win the owners’ vote. Gallo’s description of Erlich as a “grasping little twerp” suggests that Erlich hoped to align with Gallo and his powerful associates (282). These scenes reveal Erlich to be an unreliable asset to Jenny’s team and show that he is eager to gain fame and notoriety at the Wolf family’s expense.
The shift in Erlich’s characterization also reflects the novel’s thematic interest in The Public’s Distrust of Mainstream Media. Erlich—a nationally known crisis management consultant—is depicted as intentionally attempting to manipulate the media on behalf of his clients. He is used an example of the kinds of media manipulation available to wealthy clients: He glibly attempts to explain to Jenny that this kind of manipulation is “Hollywood, baby!” Moreover, the fact that Erlich’s loyalty and manipulative power can be easily bought is used to indicate the shallowness of these types of relationships. In a similar way, Jenny’s interview with Oprah—perhaps the most famous American television talk show host—is seen as a manipulative use of the media on Erlich’s part. John Gallo worries that the interview will make Jenny “seem more sympathetic than that actress the prince married” (241), which is a reference to Oprah’s 2021 interview with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, formerly known as Meghan Markle. The novel depicts Erlich as using Oprah in order to have Jenny appeal to American women and manipulate public perception, and the reference to Markle shows that wealthy people have previously used her for similar purposes. Erlich’s actions exemplify the kinds of manipulation that lead to the public’s distrust of mainstream media sources.
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