The Hunter

Cameron ‘Cam’ King is a former cage fighter, with a successful career behind her following a car smash which nearly killed her and lost her a brother, Nate. But Nate, who was driving, didn’t die in the crash…….he simply disappeared, for reasons Cam has never understood. All she knows is he’s out there somewhere. She can feel it.

Following her recovery Cam becomes a skip tracer, chasing debts. She learns skills that will enable her to do her job, but also to help track down her brother. But it’s not easy finding someone who has no footprints, electronic or otherwise, and clearly has no wish to be found.

One day, though, she gets close, fastening on a pseudonym she feels certain is Nate’s. But in doing so, she finds a dead body with a gun lying alongside it. Two things are very wrong with the scenario: the body isn’t Nate’s… but the gun is hers.

Cue the arrival of the cops and a team of professional hunters. Panicking, Cam disarms the cop, named Ray Perada, but is lucky to get away with her life when the hunters hose down the building with machine-gun fire in an extraordinary example of over-kill. Why would they do this – and who are these people? And why try to kill her? She’s a ‘nobody’, a busted fighter with a broken body, she’s no threat to anyone.

But she’s wrong.

Finding an unwitting ally in Perada (who has been disciplined for reasons that are unclear - but he believes must involve Cameron, or her brother), Cam continues the search for Nate. But she now has an added imperative in Perada’s suspicion that big business is behind the attack on her and his suspension… and somehow the Department of Homeland Security and big business are in the mix, too.

A scorching debut novel, this is a real thriller, with vivid action scenes, lots of gun play and enough chase material to satisfy fans of the genre. The pace is relentless, the characters likeable and well-drawn, and the eye-ball-to-eye-ball fight scenes are full of balletic grit and colour.

If you like action thrillers, this is one for you. Roll on the next one, Mr Reid.

Recommended.

And reviewed also by John Parker HERE