ajnel's review
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Written under the nom de plume of Jack Harvey, Rankin stepped away from his Rhebus novels but he still remained close to his alma mater of the detective novel. "Witch Hunt" is a fast paced twisty and turny "catch a killer" thriller, focused around a contract killer believed to have been hired to kill a prominent G8 attendee. Rankin, as with the Rhebus novels, develops deeply layered characters without this impacting on the pace of the novel. A great read for a lazy afternoon. 3.5/5
benevolentreader242's review
3.0
Hard story to get into and the characters were hard to like as well.
jacobamol's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
pjmurphy3's review
3.0
I didn't feel like it moved at a pace I would have liked. it was a bit slow but otherwise good.
ceeceerose's review
4.0
A very methodical, meticulous thriller, in the same vein as Frederick Forsyth’s espionage classic The Day of the Jackal. In this story, police and British intelligence are searching for an assassin called the “witch.” They have a feeling they know where she’s going to strike but they do not know when or how. Rankin does a great job of keeping a story like this moving…basically in the hands of a lesser author, it might be quite boring with the characters just plodding along. But, Rankin is able to keep up the suspense with taut writing and a knack for knowing how to build up tension. A good, solid thriller by a writer who knows how to write for his genre.
howjessicareads's review
4.0
An excellent chase-the-assassin's-trail type book. Featuring agents from MI5 and Special Branch, among others, who are all on the hunt for the "Witch" --a notoriously slippery assassin. Her tactics are intriguing, and for once the cops/spies working together to catch her are smart, and do the right thing. Doyle, Greenleaf, Elder, and Barclay are an unlikely assortment to work together, but they work together well, down to the wire at the big international summit occurring in London where they suspect Witch is going to appear.
crufts's review
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
A decent read. Not fantastic, but not bad either.
I enjoyed the personalities and dynamic of the three protagonists (Michael, Dominique and Dominic) and it was fun to go along with them on the ride of the crime investigation. I especially appreciated Joyce Parry's role as the MI5 section chief, as it was refreshing to see the steely, stern senior manager character cast as a woman.
Ian Rankin also knows how to lighten the mood, dropping banter and silliness between the detectives that save the investigation from just being a drag.
And the book was solid when it came to technical knowledge and realism in the lives of the detectives: how they collected notes, how they gathered information, etc. From the perspective of an outsider, it all seemed well-researched.
However, the book does have its downsides. The pace was unnecessarily slow; several background characters get over-long introductions from their point of view before being interviewed by the detectives. Some of these slow intros went on for multiple pages.
Secondly, the burgeoning romance subplot between [character] and [character] seemed pointless - it was built up and up, and then ended with no conclusion. Will they or won't they? We'll never know, and it didn't seem to affect anything else in the narrative.
There were also a lot of crude remarks in the story, usually from background characters interacting with Dominique or Witch (both women). I get that being set in A Sleazy City™️ helps build a certain mood in crime fiction, but the one-sidedness of these jokes always being directed at these two women characters, without any other characters dealing with it or speaking up against it, got a little tiresome. There was also a scene where [female character] is putting her makeup on, and there's this bizarre narration along the lines of "She knew how beautiful she was and how much power it gave her...". Come on, man, you're an internationally famous author, you can do better than this!
I also found the ending rather unsatisfying, maybe because it's so sudden. A main character is almost killed, and then we just fast-forward the first few days of recovery, and now he's back on his feet to finish the story? And why should he succeed the second time around, given that he's still badly injured?
The major character backstory reveal at the end of the novel also happens quite suddenly and without enough foreshadowing, so that was also hard to believe.
Overall, an unremarkable but still fairly enjoyable crime fiction novel.
I enjoyed the personalities and dynamic of the three protagonists (Michael, Dominique and Dominic) and it was fun to go along with them on the ride of the crime investigation. I especially appreciated Joyce Parry's role as the MI5 section chief, as it was refreshing to see the steely, stern senior manager character cast as a woman.
Ian Rankin also knows how to lighten the mood, dropping banter and silliness between the detectives that save the investigation from just being a drag.
And the book was solid when it came to technical knowledge and realism in the lives of the detectives: how they collected notes, how they gathered information, etc. From the perspective of an outsider, it all seemed well-researched.
However, the book does have its downsides. The pace was unnecessarily slow; several background characters get over-long introductions from their point of view before being interviewed by the detectives. Some of these slow intros went on for multiple pages.
Secondly, the burgeoning romance subplot between [character] and [character] seemed pointless - it was built up and up, and then ended with no conclusion. Will they or won't they? We'll never know, and it didn't seem to affect anything else in the narrative.
There were also a lot of crude remarks in the story, usually from background characters interacting with Dominique or Witch (both women). I get that being set in A Sleazy City™️ helps build a certain mood in crime fiction, but the one-sidedness of these jokes always being directed at these two women characters, without any other characters dealing with it or speaking up against it, got a little tiresome. There was also a scene where [female character] is putting her makeup on, and there's this bizarre narration along the lines of "She knew how beautiful she was and how much power it gave her...". Come on, man, you're an internationally famous author, you can do better than this!
I also found the ending rather unsatisfying, maybe because it's so sudden. A main character is almost killed, and then we just fast-forward the first few days of recovery, and now he's back on his feet to finish the story? And why should he succeed the second time around, given that he's still badly injured?
The major character backstory reveal at the end of the novel also happens quite suddenly and without enough foreshadowing, so that was also hard to believe.
Overall, an unremarkable but still fairly enjoyable crime fiction novel.
ginpomelo's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
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