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HUNTED by Emlyn Rees Corsair, September 2011 336 pages 12.99 GBP ISBN: 1849018820

Danny Shanklin is a careful man, or so he likes to think, and in his line of work careful matters. An ex-CIA covert affairs specialist turned freelance, Danny is in the business of trying to help people, something that's important to him, as he's haunted by the guilt of having been unable to help his own family when it mattered most and is now estranged from his teenaged daughter as a result.

So when Danny attends a meeting with potential clients in a London hotel, he isn't happy when he's relieved of his means of communication with his outside technical back-up, the computer hacker known as The Kid. And from there, things take a rapid down-turn. Danny is taken out by a charge from a Taser and wakes up dressed in a black balaclava, a red tracksuit and a brand new pair of trainers. But, more alarmingly, he has a Heckler and Koch G36 assault rifle in his hands. Moments later, he hears screaming and looks down from the hotel balcony at a scene of complete carnage. To make matters worse – if that's possible – he finds the mutilated body of a dead man in the same suite of rooms.

It's clear that Danny is being set up to take the fall for both the murder and the massacre. With only the support of The Kid, Danny has to flee the police and assorted intelligence agencies, all under the watchful eye of the thousands of surveillance cameras thronging London.

As chase sequences go, this one is certainly impressive and lasts for most of the book, which is no mean feat on the part of any author. There were few, if any, occasions when I felt the author was stretching the bounds of credibility, and it was easy to get caught up in the ebb and flow of Danny's attempts to outwit his pursuers. As main characters go, Danny Shanklin is a good combination of competence and vulnerability. Not too macho to alienate, clearly intelligent and, when the occasion demands, also ruthless. The violence is occasionally shocking, predominantly in the flashback sequences to the events that clearly shaped Danny into the man he is now, but never wholly gratuitous.

I spent the latter part of the book wondering how on earth Rees was going to bring events to a satisfactory conclusion as matters unfolded at breakneck speed and when the answer came that the story will continue in a sequel, I did feel somewhat cheated, but that certainly won't stop me coming back for more. I ended up caring about both Danny and his daughter, and I want to know what happens to them.

§ Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.

Reviewed by Linda Wilson, December 2011

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