First things first: BLOOD HUNT isn’t one of Ian Rankin’s award-winning Rebus series of novels, nor is it actually a new work, having been originally published under a pen name years ago. Unlike some authors’ cheap rehashes and repubs, however, BLOOD HUNT manages to hold its own, as long as you understand and appreciate its milieu: the globe-hopping thriller.
The BLOOD of the title refers not only to, well, actual blood, but also to family ties. Former SAS commando Gordon Reeve (who, as the book’s jacket suggests, “knows something about killing”) gets caught up in a whirlwind of intrigue surrounding the death of his journalist brother in San Diego. This is no by-the-numbers murder, however, and eventually Reeve has to pull together an unlikely group of allies, unravel a web of conspiracy and deceit, and confront his own past in order to get some closure.
While BLOOD HUNT does a fine job of capturing the pacing and plot elements of the classic spy thriller (which I love), it has one particular aspect that places the book below much of the rest of Rankin’s novels: the setting. The locations leave something to be desired. From generic Scotland to San Diego to craggy, generic Scotland with a side-trip to the generic French countryside and a flashback to Argentina at night (who really flashes back to the Falklands war, anyway?), Rankin misses the escapist wonder of setting that Robert Ludlum so definitely perfected. Yet Rankin understands the thrill of the “just missed me” escape, the white-knuckle anxiety of being hunted and the ultimate satisfaction that emerges when the protagonist turns the tables.
If you measure BLOOD HUNT on its merits alone and not against the author’s body of excellent work, it stands above the crowd of me-too wannabe Forsythes and Ludlums (or even scarier, wannabes writing as Ludlum). Setting isn’t everything, and BLOOD HUNT proves that with style to spare. –Ryun Patterson
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