The Hunter

Cameron King is a champion cage fighter known as “The Hunter” who knows how to look after herself. At the start of the novel she is injured in a terrible car crash. Her brother was driving but when she comes back to consciousness, and is rescued - she is told that there is nobody else in the car, just her. Her brother has seemingly disappeared, if he was ever there at all.

Cameron launches into a quest to find her brother and eventually finds the lead she was looking for, a possible alias that her brother could be using – Sam Gorton. She tracks him down only to find that he is not only unknown to her but he is also dead. The murder weapon is next to the dead body and it’s Cameron’s gun. Enter Ray Perada, a disillusioned cop who arrives at the crime scene and promptly tries to arrest Cameron, only to be taken out by one of her trademark kicks. Their paths are soon to cross again and they become allies, fighting for their lives, running from a ruthless team of mercenaries, looking for Cameron’s brother Nate in an effort to discover why he ran in the first place. What they find out is shocking and could change the world forever.

Reid has written a gripping, fast-moving action tale that rarely lets up and barrels along to a rip-roaring conclusion. The characters are interesting enough and the team-up between Cameron and Ray is well-drawn. The villains are a little too clichéd for my liking (Miller and his henchman Samson), though this doesn’t detract from the narrative. It’s just that you feel like you have seen this type of bad guy many times before. But, I insist, the story holds up for what is quite an extraordinary climax.

My biggest complaint is the violence which left me wincing, and caused me to skim over those visceral parts. Though inevitable I suppose if your heroine is a skilled fighter, then her story will be violent. I am not particularly squeamish as a reader, but some of the violence was rather disturbing and graphic. Be warned if you are averse to ultra-violence!