Blood Hunt: A Jack Harvey Novel

The short overview of the author's life at the start of this edition left me wondering where he learned as much as he seems to know about commando tactics and hand-to-hand fighting. I am not and have never been a commando or any kind of soldier, and the knowledge that Rankin displays certainly impresses me as it is no doubt intended to do. However I am fairly easily impressed when it comes to such matters, I would guess the majority of the public are similarly placed; and I sense that Rankin knows this. This is an early production from him, and that shows to some extent. I detect that he is still, up to a point, learning and rehearsing his trade as a tough-guy novelist, although I should say before I go any further that I found this book a great read and enjoyed it thoroughly.

A fully professional practitioner in this field would never have left his readers even suspecting that he may not know as much as he lets on, however true that may actually be. There are some other signs too that the author is still getting into his stride. In particular, he seems to lose interest in, almost to forget about, some elements of the plot that he had had flagged up as particularly significant in the early chapters. Who actually killed the hero's brother, for instance? This is the whole starting-point of the narrative, but the focus in the later developments moves elsewhere. The 'family' theme runs into the sand too, and - very strikingly - the 'pink mist' that descends so dramatically on the hero early on simply seems to be crowded out as a thread in the story as it progresses.

Far more important however is that this author really knows how to write a gripping action tale. The plot is completely comprehensible, but I'm not sure whether that counts on the plus or on the minus side in such a novel. Probably the plus side, as it no doubt a perverse taste of my own that I enjoy being totally baffled by the plots of spy stories and the like. A definite plus is that there is no sex whatsoever in this book, the author resisting any temptation he might have felt to deviate from his tense and action-replete narrative. His style of writing is excellent in all major respects too. It is plain, it is literate, it is clear and it is coherent and self-consistent. This is the first novel by Rankin that I have read, and I sense that as a literary craftsman he is capable of more ambitious things than he attempts here. However he is right not to over-extend himself in this respect. I thought I detected a couple of shy attempts at phrase-making along the lines of (say) Chandler, but in general he seems to hold back from that sort of thing for his present purposes, although I dare say he has become more adventurous in his later writing. At this stage he keeps his eye on the ball and delivers his narrative with real punch, never at any stage losing this reader's attention and providing a wind-up that is genuinely exciting.

I thought that the characterisation was rather good as well. What convinced me rather less was the environmental message, where he seems to me to fall between two stools. If he wants to shock us, he needs to try harder than this, I'd say. The revelations are bog-standard material and just a bit superficial, and I found myself yearning slightly for the over-the-top hyperbole of Ben Elton's Stark. It may be of course that Rankin just did not want this theme to overbalance his main narrative, but if that was the intention it might have been better to avoid any sense of sermonising whatsoever, as this particular theme is hard to treat as a sub-plot.

A Good Read for all that, with all the right ingredients for such a story selected, mixed and cooked in the right way. Definitely worth buying if you can't borrow a copy.

Nietzsche's Gentlemen. (11/11 people found this helpful)

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 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 both "Bleeding Hearts" and the best of the Rebus books on characters and settings (Scotland to San Diego, London, France and back, with - literally - a cliffhanger finale on the Outer Hebrides' rough mountainous territory). And then there's that children's rhyme that I don't think I'll ever hear quite the same way I used to ...

Although I'm happy enough for Rankin's success with Inspector Rebus and wouldn't want any story featuring Edinburgh's finest (and most hard-drinking) D.I. missing from my bookcases, in a way I regret that Rankin had to shelve Jack Harvey after only three books. So just in case, Mr. Rankin, in the unlikely event that you should ever resurrect that alter ego (or write a non-Rebus novel under your own name): I promise I'll read that one, too, and probably with just as much pleasure as any of your other books.

Realism aside, a great read. (6/6 people found this helpful)

This is the first Rankin/Harvey book i have read and to be honest i will now endeavour to read more. It has a fantastic plot and the characters are well developed. The main downfall of this is that at times the sense of realism is lost and it becomes slightly fantasy like (The hero is a bit too good, SAS or not.). I would definatley recomend this book to anyone as it is a fantastic read and is a real page turner.

Thrilling from Start to Finish (8/8 people found this helpful)

Having listened to the other two Jack Harvey tapes, I kept thinking that this could not be as good as the other two, again I was wrong.

Ian Rankin can not only write great stories about Inspector Rebus, but has the ability to put together great tales and characters that hold the listeners attention. In Blood Hunt an ex-SAS soldier learns of his brothers death in the USA. He then has to turn detective to resolve the complex motives behind the murder. Rankin manages to weave a number of seemingly disconnected sub plots into a great ending.

A "Bloody" poor read (1/10 people found this helpful)

I do wish I'd read the reviews before I bought this book. I'm a bit of a part-time reader, but if a novel grips me then great if it doean't I consider it a poor read. This book is the latter. Slow plot and poorly defined characters it felt at times as if it was never going to end. Very poor show. Stick to the Grisham's of this world!

Blood Hunt: A Jack Harvey Novel

Ian Rankin

Reader Reviews:

TOUGH NUTS (1/1 people found this helpful)

Nietzsche's Gentlemen. (11/11 people found this helpful)

Realism aside, a great read. (6/6 people found this helpful)

Thrilling from Start to Finish (8/8 people found this helpful)

A "Bloody" poor read (1/10 people found this helpful)

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