The Hunted by Gabriel Bergmoser - [Review]

The Hunted by Gabriel Bergmoser 
[Review]

Print Length: 288 pages
Publisher: Faber & Faber

Publication date: 6 August 2020

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Synopsis 

Where does the adventure end . . .
and the nightmare begin?

Frank owns a service station on a little-used highway. His granddaughter, Allie, is sent to stay with him for the summer, but they don't talk a lot.

Simon is a dreamer and an idealist, in thrall to the romance of the open road and desperately in search of something.

Maggie is the woman who will bring them together, someone whose own personal journey will visit unimaginable terror on them all. . .

Review

A horror packed action book meets The Hills Have Eyes

If you are looking for nightmare fuel, then Gabriel Bergmoser has you supplied. The Hunted is a fast-paced action horror that is impossible to put down. 

The book is divided into two time lines, simply 'now' which focuses on Frank's story and 'then' which focuses on Charlie's story but when Frank and Charlie are forced to meet, this whole story explodes into something deliciously barbaric. 

Frank is a middle-aged man who wishes for a simple and quiet life which is why he runs a quiet little service station in the middle of nowhere. Frank is clearly haunted by some memories of the past and this often presents itself in his dreams. Frank receives a call from his estranged son who pleads with Frank to care for his disruptive teenage granddaughter Allie in the hopes to give her a new perspective of life. 

Allie is feeling isolated far away from home, in a place which she considers nothing more than a dump, with a grandfather who barely speaks two words to her and shouts out in his dreams. This bond however changes when a woman hauls herself out of her car at Frank's service station who looks like she has been beaten to within an inch of her life and Frank must take drastic measures to keep his granddaughter safe. 

The story flips to 'then' which focuses on a young woman Maggie who is running away from her past but unbeknownst to her, she runs into something far more sinister than her past. This part of the story is explosive, Maggie and her newly made friend Simon run into a small town, Simon clearly feels like there is something more sinister at play and begs Maggie to leave but Maggie doesn't want to go back home, she wants to keep moving forward and sadly she is faced with the horrific consequences of her actions when she finds a barn full of human body parts hung from hooks. Maggie knows she is in serious danger and is forced to try to fight for her life.

Frank is confronted by a man who is demanding to know where the injured woman was, Frank being concerned for the girl's safety denies knowledge of the woman's existence which suddenly puts him smack bang in the middle of danger. Soon Frank's service station and home are surrounded by the town's people, eager to find the injured woman by any means possible. The last part of the story is nail-bitingly tense as are confronted by a situation of fight till you die. 

There is so much more I could say about this book but I don't want to ruin it for anyone, if you are a horror lover like me, then this will tick all your boxes. 

About the author

Gabriel Bergmoser is an award-winning Melbourne-based author and playwright. He won the prestigious Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award in 2015, was nominated for the 2017 Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing and went on to win several awards at the 2017 VDL One Act Play Festival circuit. In 2016 his first young adult novel, Boone Shepard, was shortlisted for the Readings Young Adult Prize. His first novel for adults, The Hunted (HarperCollins, Faber, 2020) is a bestseller and a film adaptation of The Hunted is currently being developed in a joint production between Stampede Ventures and Vertigo entertainment in Los Angeles.

Follow Gabriel Bergmoser on Twitter: @gobergmoser

Learn more about Gabriel Bergmoser here