I received this book as an advanced reader copy through Netgalley. It came out earlier this week on January 10th. This was also my first read of 2023.
The Hunter follows Leigh, a former NYPD detective who gets let go when she pulls her gun on her partner letting a suspect escape. Her decision leads her husband to leave her and her without a job while trying to take care of her daughter. Her brother calls her and asks her to come back home to their small town in order to solve the mysterious deaths of three men who died from drowning together.
Leigh takes her daughter, tells her husband they're headed home (which he very much opposes), and returns to the house she grew up in, in Copper Falls. Leigh never meant to come back, she was too big for such a small town and always eager to leave it. When she gets there, she finds that no one wants to help in her investigation, not the chief of police, the victims' friends and families, or the coroner seem interested in helping her. Her brother keeps trying to get her to focus on their everyday duties.
As Leigh delves deeper into the deaths, she finds that the secrets of the town are not what she expected and the issues revolving around the deaths of these three men are much more complicated than some ritual. And Leigh herself is much more complicated than she seems to be.
This book is full of mystery but has nice added slice-of-life moments having to do with Leigh's daughter and uncles. Although the book is advertised as suspense, horror, and thriller, I would argue that doesn't really fit the story. There are mysterious aspects, but I didn't find myself as invested as I would in a thriller/suspense novel. I was surprised by the facts unfolding, but there was definitely a "wow" factor missing for it to be what I would consider a thriller.
The book is good: it's interesting, the plot is unexpected, and the characters are complex. I would just say that for me, it's missing the aspect of "what's happening?" "is everything going to be okay?" that I think is needed for a thriller. On top of that, I feel like Leigh as a character puts on this projection of being a "good" cop, but then when there are issues with the police force she acts upset before doing nothing. That disappointed me.
Overall, the book was good. If you enjoy mysteries, I would recommend you check it out. It definitely had a lot of interesting story elements. You may even find it to be a thriller. For content warnings, I would say that obviously, this is a police-heavy book so that's something to be aware of, there is the discussion of racism/racial prejudice, parent death, terminal illness, drowning, murder, and more. As always, I recommend StoryGraph for a full list of possible content warnings as provided by other readers, however, they are limited given the newness of this book.
As always, happy reading, and I will be back soon with more reviews. If you want more content from me, you can find me on social media.
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