‘The Hunters’ – David Wragg (Harper Voyager)


Ah, the ‘easiest’ TBR pile… How naive I was, in the middle of November, to think that I could finish three books off before Christmas... Life happened, life continues to happen :o(

I’m still about a hundred and fifty pages from finishing off ‘Into the Narrowdark’ (which is very good but my focus is shot right now and that’s no way to approach a Tad Williams book) but I did finish ‘The Hunters’ before Christmas, just never got round to posting about it… Until now :o)

I really enjoyed the ‘Articles of Faith’ books (reviews Here and Here) so was definitely interested to see what ‘The Hunters’ was like; just took me a while to finally get to it so once again, I’m the last one to the party. I really need to do something about that but for now, lets talk a little about ‘The Hunters’.

She’s on the run. They’re out to kill. But what happens when you catch a hunter?

Ree is a woman with a violent past – a past she thought she’d left behind. After years of wandering, she and her niece Javani have finally built a small life for themselves at the edge of the known world.

But sometimes the past refuses to stay there, and Ree’s is about to catch up with her. This time, there will be blood.

For the land is in turmoil and professional killers have arrived in their town looking for an older woman and child, setting off a desperate chase through deserts, mountains, and mines. Ree will have to discover her former self if she is to keep them both alive.

Everyone is a hunter but not everyone is hunting for the same thing. Some people hunt for the truth while others hunt for peace and a better life. And then you’ve got people whose ‘truth’ is honour or coin and what they hunt is a way to have these for themselves. ‘The Hunters’ is what happens when all of these people come together in an old frontier town, and beyond. The result? Well…

I’ll be honest, ‘The Hunters’ was a book where I struggled to find the ‘hook’ that would really get me into the plot and keep the pages turning; hence why it took so long to finish. That’s not the books fault though, it’s all on me. The state I was in back in December, focus was hard to get of hold of and that’s what hobbled me here.

‘The Hunters’ proved to be worth sticking with though. There is action to be had here, in the vein of all the best Westerns that were somehow always to be found on ‘Sunday afternoon telly’ when I was a lot younger. We’re talking bounty hunters and fugitives on horseback and in wagons, tearing across a beautifully drawn backdrop that leaves you in no doubt that you’re right on the frontier. All it takes is one step to land yourself in the wilderness, that’s how ‘on the edge of civilization’ ‘The Hunters’ is and it’s just enthralling.

But ‘The Hunters’ is more than just that. At its heart, this book is all about finding your family no matter where you are. An unforgiving landscape, and a pack of bounty hunters on your tail, makes family out of anyone who isn’t trying to kill you and ‘The Hunters’ really runs with this theme, throwing a totally disparate group of people together and turning them into family, no matter their thoughts on the matter. Every character is an engaging one, even the ‘villain’ who has his own family problems, and for me, this meant that I eventually found myself on board without quite realising it. Hard to get into, that’s on me; all to easy to stick with, that’s all on Wragg who effortlessly repeats the trick he pulled with the ‘Articles of Faith’ books.

In case you weren’t sure then, I’m really glad that I stuck with ‘The Hunters’. Maybe not the book that I was after but very definitely the book that I needed to read. As far as 'The Company of the Wolf' goes, I'm trying to stick with paperbacks at the moment but it is payday next week so maybe I'll be reading it sooner than planned. Hmmm... :o)

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