Hunt You Down has all of the hallmarks of a great action novel – a talented, though perhaps somewhat damaged main character, a smart and beautiful female accomplice, an evil genius and international travel.
John Smith is not your ordinary gun for hire (or 'executive security' as he prefers to style it). Trained as part of a secret CIA initiative, he is a dab hand with weapons, hand to hand combat - and can also read minds.
When a group of shooters target the wedding of a well known reality TV star her father hires him to hunt down her attackers.
Through his psychic abilities he learns about 'Downvote' a dark net Reddit style website where people can submit names and details of celebrities, politicians and business people that they feel need to be taught a lesson.
This leads Smith to try to find the source of the website and who is behind it, along the way picking up the requisite beautiful female sidekick.
The story is gritty and fast paced - I loved the opening line, 'It's not easy to find a nice, quiet spot in L.A. to torture someone', which drops you straight into a pretty tense scene involving some Russian Mafiya.
Smith's abilities go beyond the simple mind reading to also being able to draw up people's memories and inflict pain that either he or someone who's mind he has read has experienced. This makes his talents more interesting, and of course from his point of view far more of a benefit.
As someone who knows a fair bit about computers and software (my boyfriend is a software engineer) I felt some of the explanations a bit long winded, though perhaps necessary if you do not already know about things like the dark net and Bitcoin.
This is the second novel in the 'John Smith' series; I have not read the first but enough background was given throughout the book to mean that this wasn't a problem.
However, after reading Hunt You Down I will definitely be purchasing Killfile and keeping a look out for future books by Christopher Farnsworth.
John Smith is not your ordinary gun for hire (or 'executive security' as he prefers to style it). Trained as part of a secret CIA initiative, he is a dab hand with weapons, hand to hand combat - and can also read minds.
When a group of shooters target the wedding of a well known reality TV star her father hires him to hunt down her attackers.
Through his psychic abilities he learns about 'Downvote' a dark net Reddit style website where people can submit names and details of celebrities, politicians and business people that they feel need to be taught a lesson.
This leads Smith to try to find the source of the website and who is behind it, along the way picking up the requisite beautiful female sidekick.
The story is gritty and fast paced - I loved the opening line, 'It's not easy to find a nice, quiet spot in L.A. to torture someone', which drops you straight into a pretty tense scene involving some Russian Mafiya.
Smith's abilities go beyond the simple mind reading to also being able to draw up people's memories and inflict pain that either he or someone who's mind he has read has experienced. This makes his talents more interesting, and of course from his point of view far more of a benefit.
As someone who knows a fair bit about computers and software (my boyfriend is a software engineer) I felt some of the explanations a bit long winded, though perhaps necessary if you do not already know about things like the dark net and Bitcoin.
This is the second novel in the 'John Smith' series; I have not read the first but enough background was given throughout the book to mean that this wasn't a problem.
However, after reading Hunt You Down I will definitely be purchasing Killfile and keeping a look out for future books by Christopher Farnsworth.