Is there ever any such thing as the truth? (Blood Hunt - Ian Rankin)

Member Name: KingHerrod

Product:	Blood Hunt - Ian Rankin
Date:	11/03/02 (132 review reads)
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Ian Rankin has recently hit the big time; his series of books about a rather terse and grumpy Scottish police inspector, Rebus, was adapted for TV (although slightly missing the brooding atmosphere of the books) and since then sales of Rankin's work have gone through the roof. Rankin's Rebus books were always critically well thought of and had always sold fairly well, but now Rankin is big business. Hence, I have a feeling that a marketing man came up with the bright idea of re-releasing some of Rankin's earlier work (when he wrote as Jack Harvey and was experimenting with the Rebus books under his own name) under the writers proper name, so we have the book Blood Hunt, by Ian Rankin writing as Jack Harvey. This book was originally published in 1995 with no apparent connection with Rankin, although he was the author. I do have a feeling, however, that readers may have twigged that this was Rankin, as Blood Hunt is written in the same style as the Rebus novels, slow paced for a mystery thriller, quite dark in places and with a slight philosophical angle.

Gordon Reeve is a retired SAS operative, retired as in self-retired after a rather horrible mission, which had clearly tested Reeve's sanity to the limit. Reeve now runs weekend "adventure" courses, training bodyguards and providing some flabby corporate bodies with an extreme type of bonding course. "Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance" is Reeve's motto and he seeks to drill this into his students.

Reeve's somewhat sedate and tranquil retirement in the Scottish countryside is interrupted by the death of his brother, James Reeve an investigative journalist, who may have bitten off more than he could chew whilst looking into the affairs of a fictitious global chemical company, Co-World Chemicals. The death looks like suicide, but Gordon Reeve is not so sure and partly to make himself feel alive again Gordon Reeve starts to
investigate what his brother was looking into. Was there a cover up by the government of the real causes of BSE? Is it true that the feed stuff argument was found to have no scientific basis and that instead it was discovered that the chemicals that are used on animals and crops were found to have a detrimental effect on the neurological workings of all mammals, both the farm animals and the humans that ate the results further down the food chain, whether in the form of crops or meat? Did the government perpetuate the myth that M.E. was a psychosomatic illness, rather than a real condition, partially caused by all the chemicals that the modern human body consumes? It is the old conspiracy theory plot and to my mind this is a rather interesting conspiracy theory to investigate.

Reeve soon finds that his brother was crossing powerful people in Co-World Chemicals' hometown of San Diego and becomes a target himself. Reeve becomes haunted by old memories and old psychological problems, but remains determined to find a version of events close to the truth.

Make no mistake this is a "page turning thriller", Blood Hunt is no deep contemplation of the role of government and the practices of big business, the writing is tight and flows well, there are no lingering descriptive sentences, Rankin moves the plot on at every opportunity although there are a few times when the plot seems to take a leap that has not been laid out sufficiently before for it to fit in with the flow of the book. Depth is added to Blood Hunt, by Reeve's own philosophising, he is a fan of the anarchist Bakunin and the "rely on yourself" philosopher and one of my own favourites, Nietzsche. Rankin makes some very pertinent points about both theories; there are times when these reflections seem jammed into the plot line, but on the whole they raise Blood Hunt above other run of the mill, churned out thrillers.

The characters are not clearly delin
eated as being good or evil, there is a fair cross over between those that you are rooting for and those that you want to meet a sticky end. People's motivations are examined and nobody comes out whiter than white.

Blood Hunt is an entertaining read, it makes some thoughtful points about human existence and motivation; it rehashes the old, big business is bad and conspiracy theory argument, which probably has some basis in fact. Big business and governments are portrayed as thinking that money is more important than peoples' health and that in order to maintain profit margins the odd death is OK, I was reminded of the recent John Le Carre book, The Constant Gardner, although that is a better exploration of this topic than Blood Hunt.

However, despite being intelligent in places and having a promising plot line, Rankin never seems to weave the fast paced thriller into the reflective thought, as a result Blood Hunt appears disjointed. It is still an enjoyable read and as the thriller genre goes and is still more intelligent than a lot of the written for Hollywood thrillers that populate the thriller sections in bookshops.

Blood Hunt is available in paperback, published by Orion at £5.99. At 421 pages, it seems a little drawn out, but is still an interesting read. It would be ideal for a holiday, or a long plane or train journey.

Not great, not awful, a fairly average book and if you are yet to read any of Rankin's work, you would be better off with Rebus.

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