GODLESS COUNTRY

A hard-boiled detective and his self-doubting assistant refuse to give up on a complicated case.

Private eye Clayton Guthrie is on a permanent retainer for an old-money New York law firm that wants him to protect one of its clients from a stalker. His stunning assistant, Rachel Vasquez, has been convinced she’s ugly ever since she was badly beaten, and she spurns the advances of NYPD cop Tommy Johnson for one-night stands with drunken college students. Guthrie and Vasquez become heavily invested in the case of wealthy Stephanie Morgan, a talented artist who’s being stalked by Duane Parson, a hulking, clever perp who manages to escape every trap Guthrie sets for him. Vasquez uses her computer skills to link him to a death on the West Coast that convinces her he's a serial killer hiding behind a false identity. But when Stephanie and her lawyer husband are gunned down before their eyes, Parson’s not the killer. At the same time, Guthrie’s old friend Abraham Swabe, who’s been working as Stephanie’s bodyguard, is also murdered, sending Guthrie on a ruthless hunt for the killer that takes him and Vasquez all over the New York area and eventually much farther afield. It seems that someone with a thirst for revenge is killing off the partners of the dishonest law firm Stephanie’s husband was once involved in. Stalked by Parson and marked for death by the unknown killer, the pair will need every bit of their considerable skills to stay alive.

Hunt’s meandering second novel (Cuts Through the Bone, 2013) is nevertheless well-written, bloody, exciting, and believable.