Who can stop reading a book that in its first chapters describes a brave new world 600 years from now that only hints at an event known as “the Arrival”?
Hunter by Robert M. Leonard opens with Thomas Hunter, some kind of non-human, standing on a ledge five miles above a futuristic Chicago, a massive urban complex and the largest city on earth. But Thomas is more interested in descending to Lowtown, what remains of the city’s original footprint, to unleash his animal instincts. “Down there, he could lose himself for a time.”
Rachel Torrence, a premier geneticist physician, sets off in her flying car to visit her parents after a young patient unexpectedly dies in treatment. It had been a simple case of multiple sclerosis caused by gene-altering radiation from his distant colony’s star. She needs her mommy, but has been neglecting her car’s computer message: “This auto needs service.”
Meanwhile, the FBI has called in the army to investigate the death of a rogue scientist suspected of creating genotic pets — “snakes with fur, cats with wings.” But what they find in his air-locked laboratory sparks a “manhunt” for cross-species, genetically manipulated human monsters.
A CROSS-GENRE NOVEL FULL OF MYSTERIES
Hunter drips with mysteries you want to keep reading to solve. Who, or what, is Thomas, really? Who or what is The Maker? The One Above? Chapters with alternating perspectives end with alternating cliffhangers. With shades of Blade Runner, Hunter is also a crime procedural and a thriller, with a little romance thrown in.
After Rachel’s car crashes in Lowtown, Thomas rescues her from criminals about to kill her. Soon they are drawn into the investigation of illegal, weaponized altered genes threatening the entire human race, along with the highest levels of the military, FBI, government and science.
Hunter is the first novel of Leonard’s third series, the Thomas Hunter Novels, joining his Alexander Gambit Trilogy and the Brotherhood of Freeswords fantasy series. His short story based in the Freeswords world won an honorable mention in the 2020 L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. (I reviewed the first book of that series here.)
MEET THE NEW OLD CHICAGO
Hunter takes readers to a new world of interstellar spaceflight and alien races, but its Lowtown is a repository for all the venal frailties of human nature. A character scoffs: “Never been below six hundred meters. And that was far too close for my liking! If they’d just clean Lowtown out it would put an end to all crime in the city.” Another adds, “There’s not a true human being among them.” Sprinkled with “dust,” the most potent illegal psychotropic substance known to man, every page sparkles with the kind of entertainment sci-fi thriller fans crave.
As Thomas and Rachel quickly learn, some things never change – pride, envy, lust, avarice, wrath, sloth and betrayal – not even in 600 years. A surprising revelation at the end of Hunter will surely find readers diving headfirst into its sequel Hunted, Leonard’s most recent release.
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Thank you for the fantastic review.
Again.
I appreciate your work