Summary
A critically acclaimed master of suspense, J. A. Jance, the New York Times bestselling author of Fire and Ice, transports readers into the beauty and mystery of the American Southwest . . . and into the very heart of terror.
The hunter is free to kill again--and hour by hour, he draws nearer . . .
The brilliant psychopath Andrew Carlisle spent only six years in prison for the brutal torture-murder of a young girl of the Tohono O'odham tribe. The testimony of Diana Ladd--a teacher on the reservation--put Carlisle behind bars, and now she can't ignore the dark, mystical signs that say a predator has returned to prowl the Arizona desert. Because no matter where Diana and her young son hide . . . he will find them.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The author of the J. P. Beaumont series moves into new territory with this mystery that draws on Native American life and lore. Six years in Arizona State Prison have turned convicted rapist/murderer Andrew Carlisle into a killing machine. Along with his student Gary Ladd, former professor Carlisle was accused of killing a Papago Indian girl, and Ladd committed suicide rather than face the charges. Shortly thereafter, when crucial evidence in the case disappeared, Ladd's widow, Diana, and Rita Antone, the murdered girl's grandmother, pressed for Carlisle's conviction. Planning revenge on those who put him behind bars, the newly released sociopath goes on a murder spree as he tracks down Diana. Warned by the clairvoyant Antone of Carlisle's impending assault, Diana marshals her defense forces--including a blind Papago medicine man and a detective with a score to settle with the killer. Leaving a trail of corpses in his wake, cross-dresser Carlisle eludes the police and prepares to victimize his own family. Jance's novel delivers suspense through richly textured layers of flashbacks and gritty characterization, and, although the relationship between the mystical Papago folklore and the rest of the plot is not as clearly developed as readers might wish, it is an intriguing thematic focus for Jance and her fans. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A hodgepodge hardcover debut in which two Native American medicine men, an Arizona lawman, a young widow and her son, and a Papago basket-weaver/wise woman are inexorably drawn into confrontation with the evil ohb, a university professor-turned- serial-killer, who upended their lives six years before when he tortured and murdered the basket-weaver's granddaughter and then stage-managed a suicide/frame-up for his distraught accomplice Garrison Ladd. Now he's stalking Ladd's widow Diana and son Davy, but his old MO (biting off nipples) used on a new victim has set the sheriff's department on his trail, while his malevolent spirit has energized the Papagos. There will be another murder, an attempted murder, dreams, emanations, and a near-fatal dog- poisoning before everyone converges on the Ladd house for a gruesome resolution. Disconcerting time shifts and a plethora of Papago parables (can anyone outdo Tony Hillerman?) fail to disguise the fact that this is nothing more than potboiler melodrama, with the hapless reader bombarded first by the lurid, then by the mystical.
Booklist Review
Before she introduced mystery readers to Seattle homicide detective J. P. Beaumont, Jance spent five years as a librarian on the Papago (Tohono O'othham) reservation west of Tucson. In Minor in Possession, Beaumont reluctantly left Puget Sound to enter an Arizona alcohol rehabilitation program. This time, J. P. stays home while his author returns to the reservation for a revenge thriller that skillfully blends Tohono O'othham legends into shifting scenes of daily life and madness, as a psychopathic killer closes in on the family he blames for his prison time. The family is an unconventional one: Diana and Davy Ladd, the widow and young son of a graduate student who apparently committed suicide before the extent of his involvement in the rape, torture, and murder of Indian teenager Gina Antone could be determined; and Rita Antone, the victim's grandmother, who has lived with Diana and mothered Davy ever since the two women succeeded in sending the second accused murderer, creative-writing professor Andrew Carlisle, off to jail. As in the Beaumont series, Jance's characters are psychologically complex, and her multilayered plot builds suspense slowly and inexorably to a harrowing conclusion. Expect requests for Hour of the Hunter from Jance's fans and from readers weary of the pedestrian serial-killer sagas that fill too many bookshelves. ~--Mary Carroll
Excerpts
Hour of the Hunter A Novel of Suspense Chapter One The room was square and hot, and so was the man sitting at the gray -- green metallic desk. Sweat poured off his jowls and trickled down the inside of his shirt. Finally, Assistant Superintendent Ron Mallory yanked open his collar and loosened his tie. God, it was hot -- too hot to work, too hot to think. Through his narrow window, Mallory gazed off across the green expanse of cotton fields that surrounded the Arizona State Prison at Florence. It was June, and irrigated cotton thrived beneath a hazy desert sky with its blistering noontime sun. Maybe cotton could grow in this ungodly heat, but people couldn't. Ron Mallory hated his barren yellow office with its view of razor ribbon -- topped fences punctuated with guard towers. The view wasn't much, but having an office at all, particularly one with a window, was a, vast improvement over working the floor in one of the units. Mallory didn't complain, but all the while, he busily plotted his own escape. Assistant Superintendent Mallory had no intention of working in Corrections forever. It was Friday. Maybe sometime this weekend he'd find some time away from Arlene and the kids to work on his book. There was a wall in Chapter 11, some kind of story -- structure problem that made it impossible to move forward. He took another swipe at his forehead with a damp paper towel and waited for a guard to bring Andrew Carlisle into his office. "Damn legislature," he told a fly that sauntered lazily across the stacks of file folders on his desk. Why couldn't those idiots down in Phoenix find money enough to fix the prison's damn refrigeration units? The air -- conditioning always went on the fritz the minute the temperature climbed above 110. Buildings in the capitol complex in Phoenix were plenty cool. He'd damn near frozen his ass off when he'd gone there as part of the official delegation begging the legislative committee for more prison money. They'd as good as said it didn't matter if it got hot for the prisoners. After all, "Prisoners were supposed to be punished, weren't they?" "What about the guards?" Warden Franklin had countered. "What about the other people who work there?" "What about them?" the committee had said. They didn't give a shit about the worker bees. Nobody did. Irritably, Mallory slapped at the fly, but it eluded him and flew over to the window just as Mendez, Mallory's assistant,knocked on the door and put his head inside the sweltering office. "Carlisle's here," Mendez said. "Good. Send him in." Ron Mallory mopped his brow, knowing it wouldn't do any good. His face would be sopped with sweat again within moments. God, it was hot! Ron Mallory had conducted hundreds of prerelease interviews in the time he'd held the job. There was a standard protocol. Where are you going to stay? What kind of work do you have lined up? But this wouldn't be a standard interview, because Andrew Carlisle wasn't a standard prisoner. As soon as the guard led Andrew Carlisle into the room, Mallory noticed that even in this terrible heat the man wasn't sweating. Guys who didn't sweat usually pissed Ron Mallory off, but he liked Andrew Carlisle. "Is this when I get the 'go-and-sin-no-more' talk?" the prisoner asked good-humoredly. Carlisle eased himself into a chair in front of Mallory's desk without waiting for either an order or an invitation. Between assistant superintendent and prisoner, there existed a camaraderie, an easy give-and-take, enjoyed by no other inmate in the Arizona State Prison. Ron Mallory appreciated Andrew Carlisle. Intellectually, he was several cuts above the other prisoners. Carlisle conversed about politics, religion, philosophy, and current events with equal facility and enthusiasm. Under the guise of working together as inmate clerk and warden, the two men had carried on six years' worth of wide-ranging discussions, exchanges that made Assistant Superintendent Mallory feel almost scholarly. "That's right," Mallory responded with a chuckle. "'Go and sin no more.' Couldn't have said it better myself. I'm sorry to see you go, though, Carlisle. Once you're gone, who's going to keep this office in order, and who'll help me finish my book? How about screwing up and coming back for a return engagement?" "I won't screw up," Carlisle declared. Mallory nodded seriously. "I'm sure you won't, Carlisle. You've more than paid your debt to society. As far as I'm concerned, you never should have been here in the first place. Don't quote me, but if every poor bastard who ever killed or fucked a drunken Indian got sent up here, we'd be more overcrowded than we already are. That judge in Tucson just got a hard-on for you. The important thing now is for you to put it all behind you and get on with your life. What are you going to do?" Andrew Carlisle shrugged. "I don't know exactly. I doubt the university will take me back. Ex-cons don't quite meet the hiring and tenure guidelines." "It's a damn shame, if you ask me," Mallory said. "You're one hell of a teacher. Look at what you've done for me. Here I am on Chapter Eleven and counting. I'm going to finish this damn book, dedicate it to you, and buy my way out of this hellhole of a dead-end job, and you're the one making it possible." Carlisle smiled indulgently, waiting in silence while Mallory studied the contents of the file folder in front of him. "Says here you plan to go back to Tucson. That right?" Andrew Carlisle nodded. "I'll hole up in some cheapo apartment, maybe down in the barrio somewhere." Hour of the Hunter A Novel of Suspense . Copyright © by J. Jance. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Hour of the Hunter: A Novel of Suspense by J. A. Jance All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.