Hunter's Moon by Don Hoesel

CJ Baxter is a successful suspense author who is being criticized for his latest work. He is also going through a messy divorce with an uncaring ex-wife. But a family death takes him away from the press conferences and book signings in Nashville, Tennessee, and to his hometown in Adelia, New York, where the well-to-do yet scandalous Baxters live. The Baxters are a political family, and CJ's brother Graham is the current elected Baxter. The Baxters have many secrets that they do not want some black sheep of a son to uncover with his return. CJ knows many things he has kept buried for many years, but now he is ready to reveal some secrets. But the Baxters will do anything to protect their reputation and keep Graham Baxter in office-even murder.

Hunter's Moon

is basically 400 wasted pieces of tree. In a long, drawn-out, detailed fashion, it accomplishes nothing but recounting the same old political scandal story, mixed with a return-to-your-hometown story. Don Hoesel has not brought anything new to the table, making this book worse than Elisha's Bones, which is an accomplishment in itself.

Despite what I heard other reviewers say, there are no good characters. Other reviewers called CJ "an annoying and rash man who often makes rude outbursts." I looked forward to this because this would have equaled an imperfect character with a potential personality. But halfway into the book, I found nothing that made CJ this type of person. CJ is your average perfect victim who is going against the odds to find truth. All the surrounding characters are stereotypical to this sort of book, such as the rude father, the corrupt politician, the politician's hit man, CJ's old flame, and so on. Elisha's Bones had better characters than this. In fact so much of this book reminds me of T Davis Bunn (not a compliment).

This book is not suspense, and while there is nothing wrong with this, nothing is accomplished throughout the plot. Don makes the book long by painfully describing every meaningless day CJ lives in Adelia. And during these days, nothing about CJ's character or any other characters is developed. Don learned descriptiveness too well, but not character development at all. During the last fifty pages, Don Hoesel steps out of the obsessive narrator role and embarks on a typical chase-and-showdown scene series that ends predictably. The best thing Don did was avoid romantic subplots altogether. Beyond this, there is nothing good about this book.

1.5 stars