Book Review: The Red Hunter by Lisa Unger

“There are certain dark doorways in this life, and when you open one and step inside, you can’t come back out. The door locks behind you and you have to stay. No one ever tells you that. Or if they do, you don’t listen.”

I really like Lisa Unger – she writes great action, strong female characters who are never quite as broken as they seem, and complex stories that revel in human frailty. The Red Hunter is a stellar example. Zoey and Claudia are both survivors – but they survived in very different ways. One wants revenge; the other to move on and past – but both are equally driven to prove they will not be victims again. As the book unfolds, the two women’s stories travel on seemingly unrelated, parallel, paths. As the paths begin to converge, secrets are gradually revealed – as is the meaning behind what once seemed random.The intersection points are fantastically rendered, as are the striking comparisons – and unexpected commonalities – between the women’s situations and (interestingly enough, given the different ways they played out) responses, most notably with regard to the revelations that come in the closing pages.

There are some difficult scenes to read; Lisa Unger doesn’t write sunshine and ponies, after all… But the violent interactions and the darkness of greed and self-righteous entitlement are (as usual) handled with a surprising delicacy of feeling. Ugliness may be inevitable in a world populated by all-too human humans, but by teasing out subtle elements of peace and beauty, even in the darkness, Ms. Unger manages to keep me turning pages even when covering topics (like rape and torture of children) that under less talented hands normally see me slamming covers and walking away… She has a way with dark imagery – she doesn’t shy away from violence or evil, rather she presents it in all its glaring banality and then shines enough light into the corners to reveal the shadows for what they are. In doing so, she doesn’t mitigate or lessen the impact of the darkness – she opens it to the eye, forcing the reader to confront it, deal with it, and then, slowly, to realize there are lessons to be learned. Then we, like her characters, can move past it. It’s a style that requires a deft hand, and one that she manages to replicate book after book – without ever feeling derivative. I’d pick up any new book of hers for that reason alone.

My review copy was provided by NetGalley.