Review - Hunted, Jasper Wolf

Set in Melbourne, Jasper Wolf's debut crime fiction novel has a serial killer targeting policewomen who all have very similar physical characteristics. Told from two viewpoints - one following the investigation and one inside the mind of a barking mad murderer with a chilling sense of calm and concentration.

Being a frequent reader of crime fiction it will come as no surprise that I've read an awful lot of "in the mind of the serial killer" type scenarios. To the point where they really have to bring something new, original or at least illuminating to the idea for them to stand out as something more than a device for injecting some tension and threat. In HUNTED the difference is that the targets are those normally charged with the responsibility to catch the baddies - a series of policewoman victims not necessarily who you would expect a killer to be targeting at all. On the other side of the coin the pairing of a detective and a psychologist is another fairly well exercised working partnership as well - with the doggedness of your investigator and the insight of the scientific. 

Other than the unexpectedness of the victims, however, there is much in HUNTED that is predictable. The increasingly "madness" of the killer, the desperateness of the investigation team, the ramping up of the threat as it gets closer and closer to the good guys. There's not a lot new being bought to the table in relation to those elements, so whether or not this novel is going to work for readers is probably a combination of how they react to the mad bad serial killer cliché and whether or not they believe, and or care that much, about the investigation team.

For this reader there wasn't enough in the victim morphology to carry the rest of the predictable elements. Whilst the novel felt "okay" it struggled to grab attention, frequently seeming too obviously structured, working too hard in places. Overall it never got it's claws into my reader imagination hard enough to make the ride seamless and time disappear.