Blood Hunt

Ex-SAS soldier Gordon Reeve, who is an expert on survival, trade and field craft, has a place in a remote, out of the way place in Scotland, where he trains future bodyguards and the like. This is safer for him, but not as satisfying, as being in action himself as he'd barely gotten out alive after an assignment in South America after a brother in arms betrayed him. Gordon killed the traitor, left the service, went into business for himself. Things are kind of ticking off okay for Gordon, he marries, has a son, then gets a call from Amercia. It appears his brother has committed Suicide. James Reeve was a reporter in San Diego and he wasn't a bit like his brother. James wasn't a gun guy, not into being in shape either, but despite that he was good reporter and he was about to come out with a story about the chemicals in our food and this was the kind of expose that could very well destroy Co-World Chemicals. Did they do in James and make it look like Suicide? Someone's going to have to explain it all to Gordon and they're gonna have to do it in person, because Gordon knows James never would have taken his life with a gun. It's murder as far as Gordon is concerned and he's gonna prove it, but along the way Gordon is gonna confront a surprise or two, including that dead guy traitor, who maybe isn't so dead after all. Though this book was written before the excellent Rebus novels, it's well worth reading. If you like Lee Child's Jack Reacher character you're bound to like Gordon Reeve.

"Reeve had been one of Nietzsche's gentlemen. Nietzsche had carried on the work of Descartes and others- men who needed to dominate, to control, to eliminate chance. But while Nietzsche wanted superman, controllers, he also wanted people to live dangerously. Reeve felt he was fulfilling these criteria if no other. He was living dangerously. He just wondered if he needed mutual aide along the way." Gordon Reeve was a soldier in the Counter-Revolutionary War fare Unit of the SAS. He was very skilled and much admired for his talents. After his last assignment where he was laid open to the enemy by his team mate, and only survived by his great skill's; he asked to be discharged. He started his own surival camp in the mountains of Scotland. He belived in the Seven "P" philosophy: "Proper Planning and Preparation Prevent Piss-Poor Performance." This is what he taught and this is how he lved his life. He married, had a son and one day received a call from the US to tell him his brother had committed suicide. Gordon flew to San Diego to find his brother's remains and became enmeshed in the murder not suicide of his brother. He discovered many interesting clues and became involved in the illegal wastes and products of chemical companies. Mystery and intrigue always follow Ian Rankin, and this is no different. The clues Gordon finds brings him to London, France, back to the US and in that time his home is bugged and his family is in danger. The people in the multi- billion dollar chemical business have ties to the CIA and to all of the Intelligence communities in msot countries. Gordon Reeves faced real danger, and in the telling and sleuthing he discovered friends who assisted him. Reeves is an amazing character and his mind is a steel trap much like my good friend, BK. He is a complex character, as are all of Ian Rankin's. He has a personality that is likeable but so multifaceted that you become enmeshed in the mystery and turn every corner with zeal as Reeve encounters one problem after another. I like Gordon Reeve. He is a philosopher and his thoughtful discussion of anarchy and Nietzsche is fulfilling. He is intelligent, complex and sexy. He loves his family, he is a man of few words but each word counts. Gordon Reeve is my kind of man, a man of mystery and delight. Ian Rankin has introduced us to a new set of characters and they work. This is a man of intelligence with a love of philosophy and action. Contrary to others' opinions, this novel does work. Certainly,no one can compare to Rebus, Ian Rankin's best known Scottish detective, but Gordon Reeves works for me. An altogether different kind of man and detective, he is a thinking woman's man. Highly recommended, prisrob 7-04-06

Reviewed by Rebecka Vigus for Reader Views (4/06) Are you looking for intrigue, adventure, international conspiracy, and more? "Blood Hunt" has all of that. Ian Rankin has definitely written a first rate novel. The book begins with the death of freelance journalist, James Reeve. His brother, Gordon, an ex-SAS that now leads week-end survivalists, flies to California to identify his brother and bring home his remains. What strikes Gordon as odd is that his non-violent, gun hating brother would use a gun to take his own life. While in California he learns that his brother might have been working on something that led to his death. Also that his death was probably murder and the local authorities could be involved. Reeves returns to Scotland only to learn that his own home is bugged and his family are in danger. He sends them to a safe place and sets out to discover what his brother had been working on. His discoveries take him to France and the secluded home of another journalist. While there, they come under attack with serious results and Gordon learns that a former SAS team member, whom he believed was dead, is now hunting him. Although the book is not fast paced, it has enough action and intrigue to keep the reader turning the pages. Ian Rankin has done a marvelous job of bringing international intrigue, murder and mayhem all into one book.

Former English Special Forces soldier Gordon Reeve is stunned to learn his brother Jim, a California freelance reporter, committed suicide. Gordon, who runs a survival course for weekend warriors on remote Skivald Island off South Uist, Scotland, has a problem with accepting his sibling killing himself though the two barely stayed in touch. Still he flies to San Diego to bring the body home and to learn what happened. SDPD Police Officer Mike McCluskey explains to Gordon why the department ruled his brother's death a suicide, but knowing Jim even if they were not close, his gut screams homicide. Deciding to follow his instincts and ignore the cops, Gordon begins to make inquiries into who would want his sibling dead by looking for why starting with Jim's work that reference Agrippa, which leads him to his siblings investigation into the illegal deadly activity of Co-World Chemicals. Fueled by rage, Gordon confronts his enemies leaving corpses in America and Scotland as he seeks the truth, which detours back to his days during the Falklands campaign. Don't mess with Gordon keeps the fast-paced plot moving at a frantic action-packed level that grips the audience from start to finish even as the story line switches gears from amateur sleuth to global conspiracy and finally to past military vengeance (against perhaps an even more crazed individual). Readers will realize how smooth Ian Rankin is as he shifts the gears effortlessly through his raging protagonist following one clue after another while leaving plenty of work for the undertakers. Though this is not a Scottish Inspector John Rebus novel, Gordon's lunacy makes for a delightful wild ride. Harriet Klausner

Oh, the blessings of being an author with too much time on his hands. I can just picture Ian Rankin sitting in the house (farm? cottage?) he and his wife bought in rural Dordogne, having whizzed through the manuscript for yet another increasingly well-written John Rebus novel and - having left behind all other employment across the British Channel and neither inclined to carpentry nor gardening - feeling his mind growing restless, in need of occupation. Now, wouldn't you have started looking for another outlet for your creative energy had you been in his spot? The result of the aforementioned process, which Rankin describes in the foreword of a 2000 (alas, so far [???] British-only!) compilation uniting all three novels in one volume, were a series of thrillers written under the pseudonym Jack Harvey: Jack for his newborn son, Harvey for his wife's maiden name. In "Blood Hunt," the last of the three books, fans of Inspector Rebus meet an old acquaintance; George Reeve from the first Rebus novel, "Knots and Crosses." Only here he's the good guy - well, mostly; because there isn't such a thing as a clean-cut "good guy" in *any* Ian Rankin novel. In any event, "Blood Hunt" introduces us to Reeve's back story; his life as an outdoors survival teacher, and his own memories and nightmares of his service with the SAS - after we've already gotten a fair share of Rebus's in "Knots and Crosses" - particularly the Falklands campaign, during which he met the man who would soon turn out to be his biggest nemesis; as much as Reeve will later become a nemesis to Rebus. Further, we learn that Reeve had a brother; a journalist on the trail of a story centering around a chemical company headquartered in San Diego. When that brother is murdered, Reeve's instincts as a hunter are awakened - and like a bull terrier he pits himself to the heels of those responsible for the murder and doesn't let go until he has brought them to justice: *his* kind of justice, that is, which isn't necessarily that of the police, but one they understand only too well. The SAS call themselves Nietzsche's gentlemen - believing in the self-proclaimed amoralist's teachings that the will to power is all that matters and all that controls life; and the novel's conclusion is very much in keeping with that adage. As a back story to the first Rebus book, "Blood Hunt" works only just so - while the essential facts are in synch with Reeve's and Rebus's SAS past, to truly click with "Knots and Crosses," this book would have had to be written about a decade earlier, or vice versa, which in turn wouldn't square with the later Rebus books' historical and political references ... you get the picture. Read as a stand-alone, however, this is a tightly-plotted thriller, every bit as violent as the second Jack Harvey novel, "Bleeding Hearts" (there's a reason why blood figures in both books' titles) and, while based on a conspiracy theory that easily dates it as a mid-1990s release, as strong as bot