Source: Review copy
Publication: 2ND May 2019 from Simon & Schuster
PP: 496
ISBN-13: 978-1471179525
‘Every story one day comes to an end.’
As roommates, they met for the first time in college. Two of the brightest minds ever to graduate from Stamford Psychology University.
As adversaries, they met again in Quantico, Virginia. Robert Hunter had become the head of the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. Lucien Folter had become the most prolific and dangerous serial killer the FBI had ever encountered.
Now, after spending three and a half years locked in solitary confinement, Lucien has finally managed to break free. And he’s angry.
For the past three and a half years, Lucien has thought of nothing else but vengeance.
The person responsible for locking him away has to pay, he has to suffer.
That person … is Robert Hunter.
And now it is finally time to execute the plan.
The Robert Hunter series is one of my favourites; it’s a series I turn to when I want to lose myself in a book, shutting out the world and immersing myself in the world of serial killers with violent minds and the man whose job it is to catch them.
Hunting Evil is the latest in Chris Carter’s Robert Hunter series. Hunter by name and by nature, Robert is in charge of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Ultra Violent Crime Unit. (I always read that and think of the unit with a glowing violet hue).
Hunter and his partner and closest friend, Carlos Garcia are really up against it in this latest book. Though Hunting Evil is the follow on book to An Evil Mind, it isn’t necessary to have read the first in order to enjoy Hunting Evil. What you would get though, is a strong sense from the off of what a fiendishly grotesque mind this antagonist has and the lengths to which he will go in the name of his deadly ‘research’.
Lucien Folter is our antagonist. A game player. A killer with an intelligent and acute eye, who knows how to think ahead and whose ability to read people has lead him to become Hunter’s nemesis.
Once college roommates, Hunter was responsible for catching Folter and sending him to a high security prison. Now, just three and a half years later, Folter has made a dramatic jail break, leaving behind him a trail of dead bodies and a message for Hunter.
Lucien is not happy, he wants revenge on Hunter and knowing him as well as he does from their college days, he has a pretty good idea of how to get it.
Carter does an excellent job of showing us how the brightest and most psychopathic mind of his day works to create the mayhem, doubt and guilt in Hunter that will drive him to exactly where Folter needs him to be.
Against a backdrop of inter-agency squabbling between the US Marshall’s office, the FBI and the LAPD, Hunter finds himself isolated from his peers in a game of cat and mouse the rules of which only he and Folter know how to play. Using deep thinking, and critical analysis, Hunter will have to not only anticipate Folter’s game but work out how to stop him before innocent lives are lost.
Folter will set the rules for this deadliest of games, and many people will die as a consequence, as Hunter struggles to work out what the twisted mind of this cold and deadly psychopath will do next.
It’s good to see Garcia have a bigger role in this book, too. He has really come into his own as Hunter’s partner and friend, even if Hunter can’t yet bring himself fully to open up to anyone, because the danger he attracts as a result of his job makes him fearful of creating more targets for the warped and twisted minds he deals with. This makes Hunter the archetypical loner; a renegade within a system bound by rules that he’s always going to have to step outside of.
Utilising a series of fairly short, sharp chapters to enhance the propulsive mechanism of the book, Carter has created another heart pounding, pacy read full of tension, twists and shocking moments. It’s a fast and furious read that’s bound to delight fans of Carter’s previous books, and to create some new ones.
Verdict: Bloody, compelling, addictive– another fabulously macabre journey into the world of a psychopathic serial killer and the man who has to bring him down.
Chris Carter was born in Brasilia, Brazil where he spent his childhood and teenage years. After graduating from high school,he moved to the USA where he studied psychology with specialisation in criminal behaviour. During his University yearshe held a variety of odd jobs, ranging from flipping burgers to being part of an all male exotic dancing group.
He worked as a criminal psychologist for several years before moving to Los Angeles, where he swapped the suits and briefcases for ripped jeans, bandanas and an electric guitar. After a spell playing for several well known glam rock bands,he decided to try his luck in London, where he was fortunate enough to have played for a number of famous artists. He has toured the world several times as a professional musician.
A few years ago he gave it all up to become a full time writer.
Live and Deadly 
Thanks so much Mary, delighted that you enjoyed this x
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