Monster Hunter Alpha by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter Alpha is the third in the series from Correia, and he shifts his protagonist point of view from that of Owen Pitt to that of Earl Harbinger, alpha dog of MHI and lone alpha werewolf. The story is interlaced with excerpts from his journal, eventually tying the two storylines together quite nicely. Earl has fought in every major conflict the U.S. has been involved with from WWI to Vietnam, and was granted his PUFF exemption (not subject to open season under federal bounty as a werewolf) for his work in the shadow wars of the jungles of Southeast Asia.

A rogue alpha werewolf has unearthed a powerful talisman that amplifies lycanthropic and other powers in an abandoned mineshaft in Copper Lake, Michigan. One of Earl's old contacts from black ops lets him know that Earl's old enemy, a Russian werewolf named Nikolai is in the area, and Earl heads out on his own to handle the problem. Agent Stark from the government's MCB is also on the case, though he's decided to get a piece of the PUFF bounty on the werewolf for himself by contracting the work out to an upstart group of monster hunters, Briarwood, who are mostly a barrel of bad apples. When all these groups converge on the town, things get crazy in a hurry.

One of the effects of the amulet is that when a werewolf who is bound to the alpha bites a human, that human turns were very rapidly, within hours or days, rather than the usual turn at the first full moon. When bitten townspeople start to turn into blood-crazed monsters, the trouble really gets rolling. However, since this is rural wooded Michigan, and not New York City, the natives pack a lot more firepower and are willing and able to defend their home from the forces of evil. The survivors pack into the local high school gym, which is built like a bomb shelter - it has one in the basement - and prepare for an Alamo style last stand.

In the meantime, Earl is hunting the alpha, Nikolai is hunting Earl, whom he believes killed his mate, Stark is hunting the alpha, the guys from Briarwood are hunting all three werewolves, and the alpha has his own plans to deal with whomever comes out on top. There's a plucky female deputy sheriff, Heather Kerkonnen, right in the middle of events, whose grandfather turns out to be the one who stole the amulet from an uber-werewolf called Koschei, and hid it at the bottom of the mine before he died. None of the other hunters from MHI show up in this book, but Earl seems to be quite capable of handling pretty much anything on his own.

This one really rocks the action, and sets up further adventures in the story arc.