Claw is the sixth Web Serial Novel written by Wildbow and his first crime procedural, following Pale, whose first chapter released on March 9, 2024.
Mia and Carson Hurst are a married couple with children based in the city of Camrose who act as any combination of identity brokers, smugglers, and ruthless killers while living a double life. When one of their jobs goes awry, things rapidly become a lot more complicated than they'd expected, with serious implications for both of their lives.
It updates on Wednesdays and Sundays, and can be read here.
Tropes include:
- All of the Other Reindeer:
- Mia is isolated from many of the other mothers her age because of her social difficulties.
- Natalie Teale is rejected by all of the mothers her age because nobody wants to be around a parent who lost their child, viewing her as a cautionary tale.
- Aloof Archer: Spence Bolden, who uses a crossbow and doesn't have a lot of contact with other people outside of his illicit activities and occasionally going to town for supplies.
- Beneath Notice: Who would expect a couple with two kids to be a pair of identity brokers?
- Bland-Name Product:
- Bullying a Dragon: Addi Arcuri deliberately spread rumors about Gio Cavalcanti that her dad was involved in organized crime, which she knew to be true, as her own dad worked directly for Gio's. Gio never said anything because she was terrified her dad would respond by having Addi killed.
- Camping a Crapper: Mia and Carson choose to murder Nathaniel while he's sitting on the toilet.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Carson and Spence talk about resettling Spence in the future while Carson carries Spence, who's been shot, away from the Cavalcanti forces hunting them.
- Childhood Brain Damage: As a child, Mia fell from a fort she and some other kids were building and suffered a traumatic brain injury. It was severe enough that she had to relearn things like how to hold a fork, and her mother's comments imply that her personality changed quite a bit afterwards. It's also implied that the TBI is the cause of her headaches in the present day.
- Crapsack World: The background world of Claw is filled with civil unrest related to several collapses of the United States government, and environmentally prone to massive wildfires, hence the commonality of face masks for breathing purposes. Retraction 2.4 has a flashback to several years before the story begins where Mia wonders why the police and fire department aren't turning up to a burning building, and Carson explains that the police are striking and the fire department are so undermanned that they're only doing triage, so in this case, where the building- and everyone in it- are doomed but the fire won't spread, nobody's going to bother to turn up.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Nathaniel is first sprayed in the throat with drain cleaner, and ultimately ends up vomiting to death.
- Deadly Gas: Mia and Carson attempt to dispatch their ex-client Nathaniel with an odorless but poisonous gas.
- Dismembering the Body: After Nathaniel dies, Mia proceeds to take his body to pieces and stuff it into bags for disposal. She also does it stark naked so that no bloodstains can get on her clothes.
- Fallen States of America: Carson alludes to the US government collapsing at least twice to Valentina, being able to remember "the first time", and civil unrest is extremely common.
- The Family That Slays Together: Mia wants her children Ripley and Tyr to join her and Carson in the identity broker business once they're old enough. As a result, her inner monologue sometimes takes the form of her expositing to her children about the hows and whys of their criminal business.
- Fate Worse than Death: Davie Cavalcanti likes to have people horribly maimed and either blinded, deafened or with their tongues cut out, but kept alive as trophies.
- Foreshadowing:
- Mia is very paranoid and strict about what her children can post on social media. At first one might think it's because she's a professional criminal, but it's also because she wants to cut down on the number of photos of them out there, so Ripley's biological family won't see her and realise that she's the child they lost.
- Mia immediately jumps to help Giovanna Cavalcanti, despite not actually knowing her and the inherent risks. Turns out she's whisked kids away from bad parents before.
- I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Mia acquired Ripley, Tyr and later Valentina by taking them from their neglectful or outright abusive parents. Tyr was abandoned by his parents, and Mia negotiated with Carson to take him as well. Note that the children in question had no choice in the matter.
- Insecure Love Interest: Mia has almost negative self-esteem, and constantly thinks about how she's not worthy of Carson and wonders why he'd be with her, even after they married. It's revealed in Retraction 2.4 that their first encounter had Mia offering Carson sex in exchange for him letting her take baby Tyr, which he accepted, which explains a fair bit about her mindset.
- Interservice Rivalry: Highland mentions that most of the US Government's security agencies are actively recruiting their own ground forces and watching each other like hawks, each trying to be the "last line of defense" who can account for all the other last lines of defense.
- Leave No Witnesses: Mia and Carson are utterly ruthless about not being found out, and when Nathaniel chooses to talk to his ex-girlfriend, they go straight to murder.
- One-Man Army: Spence Bolden is described this way- a ruthless killer who knew his land like the back of his hand, and isn't daunted at the prospect of going up against groups of enemies with guns by himself.
- Outlaw Couple: Mia and Carson are a married couple and criminals.
- Parents as People: Mia's mother didn't handle having a child with a traumatic brain injury who became almost an entirely different person afterwards well.
- Pet the Dog: Mia is very protective of children, and immediately jumps to help a teenager running away from her abusive father, even though it puts them both in danger.
- Putting the Band Back Together: The Retraction arc has a variant, where Mia and Carson gather four of their old clients to take on the Cavalcantis: an ex-soldier, the daughter of a cocaine syndicate who were taken over by the Cavalcantis, a former employee of the Kitchen, and a smuggler/killer.
- The Reveal:
- The Point 1.6 reveals that Ripley isn't Mia's child. Mia abducted her when she was a baby, having found Ripley left in a car while her parents argued for over fifteen minutes without checking on their baby.
- Retraction 2.4 reveals that Tyr isn't Mia's child either- his biological parents abandoned him as a baby after they had to flee their burning apartment, and Mia negotiated with Carson to keep him.
- The Social Expert: Carson is extremely socially gifted, and takes the role of The Face for them because he's so good in social situations.
- Switching P.O.V.: Each Arc of Claw switches its main protagonist character, with Arc 1 being Mia, Arc 2 Carson, and Arc 3 Valentina.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: It's unclear where exactly Camrose is except for vaguely being in the United States. It being Camrose, Alberta (In Canada) or Camrose, California is explicitly ruled out in The Point 1.2.
