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Hunter's Moon by David Deveraux
01/07/2007 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
Pub: Gollancz. 231 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 9.99 (UK only). ISBN: 978-0-575-07985-4. Buy Hunter's Moon in the USA - or Buy Hunter's Moon in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk and www.david-deveraux.com
This is a somewhat odd book. More or less set in our reality, an off-shoot of the British Intelligence Service fights fire with fire, employing a minor warlock against similarly empowered people to fight...er..magical terrorism.
We see life as depicted through Jack's eyes and he holds a professional attitude throughout. You may torture him but emotionally, he's as dry as desiccated lemon. Even when he kills, it's done matter-of-factly and has no qualms about hitting or killing women. In short, he's the perfect bastard working for queen and country.
There is a lady witch's coven out to kill the Prime Minister and Jack goes undercover, together with a trained inside female agent to stop them. Apart from the occasional magical spell, he has all the tools of conventionality to help him. As the story is seen from his perspective, any perception of why the opposition is doing what it is doing is only seen from his side of things. Ultimately, the good use bad methods and the bad are just evil and use bad methods.
If anything, you are most likely to come away from this story knowing that a professional is just going about his job as he was trained to be. If you're out for any emotional content from the story then you're going to be disappointed. Indeed, even the more violent scenes have so little passion that you'll probably wonder whether you should care for any of the characters depicted here. Its one thing to put characters into extreme danger but if they don't care and you don't care one way or the other if they get out of it or not then I think it works against the story. Its not helped that cos of the magic that there is some deux ex machina to repair minor damage.
The lack of compassion and clinical violence will probably disappoint horror genre fans. I'm sure it will make people think but not entirely sure it will garner a following.
GF Willmetts
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