THE HUNTER

An anonymous text asking about the death of the mother he never knew draws San Francisco Private Eye Wyatt Hunt into a forty year old murder case with links to the counter-culture of the early seventies.

This is an ‘old school’ thriller in the very best way possible. There is no gratuitous violence and very little bad language, in their place is a well crafted plot, a genuine feeling for place and some sharp characterisation.

Lescroart makes skilful use of San Francisco’s long standing reputation as the city where alternative lifestyles flourish, no more so than in the early seventies when hippies still had flowers in their hair and the followers of the Reverend Jim Jones had murder on their minds.

He sets builds his central character Wyatt Hunt, with his rugged good looks, effortless charm and warehouse sized apartment, up as a dynamic ‘go getter’ to show all the more clearly his vulnerability in the face of the discoveries he makes about his troubled beginnings.

Clever, well-constructed and gripping form first page to last. If I were advising a reader new to the genre on what books to buy I would include The Hunter on their reading list. Partly because it shows what a skilled writer can do within the conventions of the genre; but mostly because it is exactly what it should be: a hugely entertaining read.