Rifle Season by Pat Kelly Book Review

About the Book:

A game hunter is in a race against time to save his family from the most dangerous predator on earth—other people—in this high-stakes thriller in the vein of Jack Carr and Peter Heller.

Mason “Mace” Winters, with his acclaimed reputation as one of the best big game hunters in Colorado, lives for the thrill of the hunt. His lucrative career guiding the wealthy on intense hunts through the Colorado mountains is suddenly brought to a stop when an accident hangs an involuntary manslaughter conviction around his neck. Now he’s relegated to a life of trash pickup in the very wilderness where his prowess as a tracker and killer was the stuff of legends.

At rock bottom, Mace descends into a haze of Tito’s and sativa when two strangers seek him out. They wave enough cash under his nose to convince him to help them up into the mountains he knows so well on the opening day of Colorado’s rifle season. An innocent enough request, and the perfect cover for the trip’s true purpose: to assassinate an infamous warlord. All at once, Mace goes from unwitting to unwilling accomplice and it will take all his now dusty skills to outfox his patrons in their deadly game.

My Review:

This is a novel firmly set in the elk hunting hills of Colorado. Mace is a flawed character. He has turned to alcohol and weed to sooth himself. I had difficulty liking him as a hero. His wife is too nice and I hoped he would wake up and be nicer to her. The plot centers around the desire for revenge in the form of murdering the man who did terrible things during war in Bosnia. That the assassination plan involved finding him in the snow covered hills in Colorado may be a bit far fetched. There was a shocking twist near the end I did not see coming. As the suspense increases, the action frequently changes location, not indicated by extra space or some other way in the advanced eARC I read. That was a bit confusing.

This book would especially appeal to readers who like hunting and/or hiking through mountains. While the first half of the book might have been a bit slow, the last half made up for it. I look forward to reading another novel by Kelly featuring a much more likable Mace.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

 

About the Author:

Pat Kelly, born in Galveston, Texas, and raised in Denver, attended CU Boulder. After working as a writer in New York City, he pursued screenwriting in Los Angeles, and his credits include A Perfect Murder and Don’t Say a Word. Rifle Season is his debut novel. He currently lives in San Miguel County, Colorado, and Malibu. Photo by Nancy Heritage.

Atria, 272 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)