Huntress Moon – Alexandra Sokoloff

The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 1

FBI Special Agent Matthew Roarke is closing in on a bust of a major criminal organization in San Francisco when he witnesses an undercover member of his team killed right in front of him on a busy street, an accident Roarke can’t believe is coincidental. His suspicions put him on the trail of a mysterious young woman who appears to have been present at each scene of a years-long string of “accidents” and murders, and who may well be that most rare of killers: a female serial.

Roarke’s hunt for her takes him across three states…while in a small coastal town, a young father and his five-year old son, both wounded from a recent divorce, encounter a lost and compelling young woman on the beach and strike up an unlikely friendship without realizing how deadly she may be.

As Roarke uncovers the shocking truth of her background, he realizes she is on a mission of her own, and must race to capture her before more blood is shed.

 

My thanks to Alexandra Sokoloff for giving me the chance to read Huntress Moon.

 

I think I will need a thesaurus for this review. I would open it to the word ‘Brilliant’ and then apply a number of superlatives to Huntress Moon. It was that good!

FBI Special Agent Roarke is witness to a colleague’s sudden and unexpected death. The deceased agent had been working undercover and was due to rendezvous with Roarke but was killed by a speeding vehicle. Just before the incident Roarke spotted a woman standing beside his colleague she vanished when Roarke’s line of sight was broken but her presence unsettled him.

The reader then gets to join the woman. She is on the run, not that she fears capture – she is escaping a crime scene and has a code to follow. She has clearly done this many times in the past. At a truck stop the woman is confronted by a trucker, it ends badly for him but the woman leaves an unavoidable mess.

We now have a fabulous set up. We follow Roarke and his investigations into the mystery woman. We follow the killer as she tries to blend in and establish a cover story. As the story develops we learn more about our mysterious killer and see how she constantly lives on the fine edge between fight and flight. The FBI investigations also progress and it becomes clear that the mystery woman will not be able to remain a mystery for long.

I found Huntress Moon to be a compelling read. I enjoy reading FBI ‘manhunt’ novels and the added bonus of seeing how the hunt unfolded from the point of view of the killer was a nice twist. By the time the story was entering the Endgame I was genuinely torn as to how I wanted events to unfold.

There are moral implications to consider in Huntress Moon. If a killer is targeting victims who they perceive as immoral, or if the victim was engaging in criminal activities, can their death be justified? One for the reader to consider and one of the reasons I was torn over how I wanted the book to end. I don’t have an answer to that question.

Huntress Moon is a stand out book for me. I liked Roarke and his FBI colleagues (who were all well developed and made to feel real). I found the killer to be fascinating, her motives are clear to her but what triggered her obsession was disturbing.

Huntress Moon is the best crime thriller I have read for many months and it easily scoops a review score of 5/5. I am now lining up the next book: Blood Moon

 

Huntress Moon is just £1 on Kindle through April 2015.

Alexandra Sokoloff recently visited the blog to discuss Serial Killers. The interview can be found here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=696

 

Visit the author’s website at AlexandraSokoloff.com

Follow Alexandra on Twitter at @alexsokoloff

Huntress Moon:  http://amzn.to/1wEwxZo