The Hunted-Wayne Barcomb

The Hunted
Wayne Barcomb
Dunne, Apr 2009, $24.95
ISBN: 9780312370756
The child witnessed the murder. She testified in court explaining what she saw that she knows will haunt her forever. The killer is convicted and sent to prison.

Eighteen years later, New York homicide detective Frank Russo is the lead investigator into the homicides of several people. His inquiry seems to go nowhere though he believes a serial killer is the culprit. Frank soon learns that a convicted murderer sentenced eighteen years ago was recently paroled. He begins to change his theory re the current killings and wonders if that freed convict is on a rampage leading him to the person who sent the killer to prison.

Frank is a fabulous cop struggling in his failed personal life as much as he struggles with a case that is going nowhere. In many ways the deranged killer steals the show from Frank as the audience sees first hand how the killer was an abuse victim and that person’s efforts to not give in to the obsession to kill again. As Frank follows the few clues, he remains clueless to the identity of the culprit who lives a normal middle class life even as the killer's urging is to hunt down the cop chasing the killer. Though serial killer investigative thrillers have saturated the market, Wayne Barcomb's fine tale is a refreshing police procedural mostly because of the hunter and the HUNTED.

Harriet Klausner