The Hunters Book Reviews

The Hunters by Peter Hill Book Summary

The Hunters (A police detective Thriller)

'To follow… the brilliantly inspired tracking of Hill's two detectives is a joy, apart from the brainteasing pleasure of accepting the author's challenge to identify the murderer.'

London Evening News

'Staunton walked out into the field. He stopped about twenty yards in, squatted down on his haunches and stared at the ditch where the girl's body had been found. Then he was motionless for a while, absorbing the details of the place, picturing it in darkness, the girl, her screams muffled by the murderer's hand, being dragged along the inside of the hedge, struggling madly in the last moments of her life.

He picked up a clod of dry earth, 'I'm going to get you, you bastard,' he said.'

It is 1975 and there are no sophisticated aids to help shrewd and earthy Chief-Superintendent Staunton of Scotland Yard's Murder Squad and his amorous young assistant, Detective Inspector Wyndsor when they arrive in a time-warped East Anglian village in the east of England to investigate the death of a local girl.

While most of the villagers are silently doing their best to hinder the enquiry, including the unhelpful local squire and his glamorous but sinister daughter, Wyndsor makes a shocking discovery—a black magic chapel, which has as its altarpiece a huge phallus. 

This is a place where old ways still hold sway, and where outsiders are viewed with the utmost suspicion.

Here the murderer lives, embedded in this introverted society. On several occasions as the search proceeds the reader is aware that they are looking at the murderer—without the possibility of identification—and it becomes increasingly certain that he will kill again unless he can be hunted him down.

The author of this impressive novel has introduced the reader to two memorable detectives.

The Hunters is the first in the Staunton and Wyndsor series of classic police procedural murder mysteries.

The others are The Liars, The Enthusiast and The Savages.

Each novel is a stand-alone story, but with the same major protagonists.

Peter Hill has also worked extensively in television for renowned British drama series such as 'Callan', 'The Sweeney', 'Z Cars', 'Public Eye', 'The Bill', 'Special Branch', 'Crown Court', 'New Scotland Yard', and 'Armchair Theatre'. He has been a writer, script editor and producer both in the UK and New Zealand, where he now lives.

 'Brilliantly described police procedure… Unputdownable.'

The Observer

'…an acute professionalism. What is even better, it has the holding qualities of a rock-loving limpet…'

Eric Hiscock in The Bookseller

'…a masterly and entertaining beginning. Not a suspicion of cardboard in the characters, and a story with a hook-hold from which there is no escape ...'

Victor Canning

'A really first-class who-dunnit'

Essex Chronicle

Also by Peter Hill

The Commander Allan Dice books

The Fanatics andThe Washermen

Peter Hill has recently returned to novel writing, but in a different genre, and Killing Tomorrow, the first of a new series of near and far-future novels, Evolution's Path, is also available as an eBook. The second, The Ladies' Game, and the third, Procreation, have recently been published.

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The Hunters (Peter Hill) Book Reviews 2024

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