Review: The Red Hunter (by Lisa Unger)

My Rating:  4 stars

Coming upon the end of the year, I’m trying to finish up a few of the reading challenges I’ve been working on the past few months.  One of those challenges is the A to Z Author Challenge whereby we read a book by an author whose name starts with each letter of the alphabet.  One of the remaining letters I had left for this challenge was the letter “U” – since the book I was originally going to read for this letter was not available at my library and I didn’t want to waste any more time trying to hunt for another book that would fit, I decided to browse through the library’s catalog of “U” authors and just pick one that was available and that I would be interested in reading.  During my search, I came across a few books by Lisa Unger, an author I actually wasn’t familiar with, but since there weren’t that many choices in the first place, I decided to go with her latest work The Red Hunter (after researching it first on Goodreads of course, lol).  Not having much expectation going into it (since it was somewhat of a random pick after all), I was pleasantly surprised that the book ended up being an excellent read, a page turner that I thoroughly enjoyed and found difficult to put down!   From the explosive first scene, of a murder that takes place in cold blood, then a shocking rape scene in the next chapter, Unger wastes no time establishing the trigger points right off the bat that will end up driving the rest of the story.  We are introduced to the two main characters, Zoey Drake and Claudia Bishop – two women, completely unrelated, yet both suffer horrific assaults, unspeakable crimes that destroy their lives physically, emotionally, mentally.  Both women, strangers who endured very different traumas, go down different paths, choosing to handle the rage within them in different ways.  As both work up the courage to face the demons of their pasts, their paths end up colliding in ways entirely unexpected.

Technically, I would rate this book somewhere between 4 and 4.5 stars (closer to 4.5).  As a psychological thriller / suspense novel, this one was absolutely top notch!  There was the intense, well-crafted plot that had a perfect amount of twists and turns scattered in all the right places throughout the book, which is of course what we should expect from a good thriller, but what made this one stand out was the characters. It’s not often that we come across a thriller where pretty much all of the characters are well-developed, each one realistically drawn as flawed human beings who make as many bad decisions as they do good ones, ordinary folks who encounter the same day-to-day pressures the rest of us do.  I loved how the author explored the issue of moral ambiguity through her characters, especially when it came down to the question of justice versus revenge, but there was so much more as well – many sensitive and thought-provoking issues, explored on a deeper level, yet at no point did I feel that this bogged down the plot.  The two main characters especially were meticulously drawn – believable characters whom I was able to connect with and relate to, feel for them with the traumas they suffered, yet also feel frustrated and annoyed when they made bad decisions or acted in ways that they knew would not turn out well.  I felt I was on the journey with both these women and appreciated seeing their growth throughout the time I got to spend with them.

This was an absolutely enjoyable read, a thrill-ride from beginning to end!  No doubt that Lisa Unger is a great storyteller and while I did figure out some of where the story was going about two-thirds of the way through the book, that did not detract from my experience much at all.  One of the things I appreciated most about this book was the way it made me ponder and ask myself tough questions that I may not have considered previously.  A book that makes me think and wonder is a good book in my world but to also have it be suspenseful and well-written with an intricately woven plot and well-developed characters, that’s icing on the cake to me!  This is the first book I’ve read by Lisa Unger but rest assured it definitely won’t be the last!