Godless Country: A Mystery

by Alaric Hunt

Overview

Clayton Guthrie is a private fixer for the aristocracy of New York City. His latest job is to protect a Manhattan heiress from a dangerous stalker. He hires retired bodyguard Abraham Swabe to protect her while he runs a trap operation assisted by his young operative, Rachel Vasquez, who juggles her new responsibilities while suffering from the shaky aftereffects of a shootout.

Guthrie and Vasquez pursue the stalker across the city, from watching a quiet townhouse on the Upper East Side, to staking out New York University around Tompkins Square, and even crawling through the grimy industrial guts of Brooklyn. Searching for the stalker's hideout, they learn the identity of one of his previous victims. She was murdered, but the killer is still at large.

Dark, riveting and hardboiled, Hunt's sequel to Cuts Through Bone is a thrilling mystery, sure to cement his reputation as one of crime fiction's most promising new authors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250067531
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/25/2015
Series:	A Guthrie and Vasquez Mystery , #2
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

ALARIC HUNT was born in Kentucky. He received a life sentence in 1988, which he is currently serving out in South Carolina. While looking in the prison library in 2010, Hunt thumbed through a copy of Writer's Market and saw a listing for the PWA competition. He entered the next year and won. Hunt is the author of Cuts Through Bone, which was written in two longhand drafts and then typed out on a typewriter.

Editorial Reviews

06/22/2015
Hunt’s uneven second mystery pairing veteran New York City PI Clayton Guthrie and his sidekick, Rachel Vasquez (after 2013’s Cuts Through Bone), meticulously portrays Vasquez, a reckless young woman still recovering from the emotional trauma of a shoot-out. Her tumultuous relationship with NYPD Investigative Services officer Tommy Johnson adds depth. But Guthrie—whose new job is to protect a philanthropic Manhattan heiress from a stalker—is described simply and repetitively as the “little detective.” In addition, the stalker—a giant “fairy tale ogre” with genius intelligence—never becomes more than a caricature. While Hunt is spot on with his hard-boiled tone and gritty atmospherics, the inexplicably unbalanced characterization of the two main characters is coupled with a largely lackluster plot, which expands to connect the murder of lawyers working at a Bronx law firm with Mexican organized crime, making this an emotionally unengaging read. Hunt is currently serving a life sentence at a South Carolina prison. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

[Hunt] sketched out a story set in New York City, a place he had never visited, and he dreamed up an odd-couple dynamic between Rachel Vasquez, a street-smart teenage operative working for a middle-aged, middle-class detective named Clayton Guthrie…What Hunt executes well…is the character of Vasquez, her sibling tensions and her existential struggles.” —Sarah Weinman, The New York Times

“Sometimes, a crime novel grabs you on the first page with its plot. Sometimes, it’s the writing. Rarely is it the author’s background. But in 'Cuts Through Bone'..., Alaric Hunt hits the trifecta in his debut.

Hunt, a native of Kentucky, has been serving life in prison in South Carolina for arson and murder since 1988. In 2010, he looked through a copy of Writer’s Market in the prison library and saw a listing for the Private Eye Writers of America contest. The result was his victory for best first private eye novel.

And what a novel....Hunt, absent from the outside world for a quarter century, infuses this novel with strikingly rich descriptions of his characters and settings....'Cuts Through Bone'...shimmers with intelligence as it melds the beautiful with the profane. A work of keen originality by a writer of profound power, Hunt’s debut offers moving testimony that steel bars can imprison the body but not necessarily the mind, nor the heart.” —Jay Strafford, Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Hunt's enticing investigators invite a series, and the red-herring-riddled gumshoe story explodes into a climax rivaling those of Robert Crais and Ridley Pearson.” —Booklist

“Despite its modern touches, Hunt's down-and-dirty debut harkens back to Sam Spade and other classic private eyes.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Debut author Alaric Hunt has a winner in Cuts Through Bone, a deeply compelling and colorfully gritty detective thriller with a truly unique pair of private detectives. Plot development is intense as Hunt ratchets up the tension to an explosive ending.” —Fresh Fiction

“Get ready for one helluva ride. Cuts Through Bone is one hardboiled rip, heavy on Noo Yawk color, slam-bang action, and a breezy, slang-filled style that isn't afraid to strut its stuff.” —Mystery Scene Magazine

“The plot is great. The vast amount of secondary characters is very accomplished....The last scene...is impressively written....[Hunt] says...he does not crave fame, and fortune is largely irrelevant, but that writing is emotionally satisfying. 'When I am writing a novel, I am outside this place,' he says. I have a feeling this impressive 'new' talent will be outside that place often in the future, putting down words that henceforth will have a place to go: a home, in a book, in a world that sometimes feels like a dream.” —Curtis Dawkins, BULL

From the Publisher