Jul 2024 – Miriam Drori, Author

Hunter’s Rules by Val Penny

Welcome all. Today I want to tell you about a new book, published just five days ago. In fact, this post is part of the blog tour.

Hunter’s Rules

A bloody scene brings Hunter and Meera’s romantic plans to an abrupt end.

A young woman attacked in a hotel lift has life changing injuries. Her wounds match those inflicted on two women who were murdered.

When Hunter is identified as a suspect in the case, he must establish his innocence to lead his team and solve this bloodcurdling crime.

Is the same person responsible for all three crimes?
Will the girl in the lift finally identify who is targeting these young women ?

Hunter will stop at nothing until he catches the unhinged killer.

Hunter’s Rules is available from Amazon US, Amazon UK and elsewhere.

My Review

The familiar characters are back in Hunter’s Rules, the sixth in the series of DI Hunter Wilson Crime Thrillers by Val Penny. I loved spending time with them again, albeit not a lot of time as I whipped through another page turner from this prolific author.

I also enjoyed meeting new characters, especially Eileen, who remains strong and positive, despite having suffered horrific injuries. Naturally, not all the characters are nice, and some turn out to be thoroughly bad. Will Hunter see to it that they get their just deserts?

Like all the other books in this series, the setting is Edinburgh, and I was happy to be introduced to new parts of this varied and colourful city.

Topics in the novel include drugs, blackmail, prison life, science, medicine and relationships. But a clue to the main theme is on the cover: “FOLLOW HUNTER’S RULES AND THE EYES HAVE IT…” I’ll say no more.

I received a free copy of this book for the Reading Between the Lines blog tour in return for an honest review.

Val Penny: BIO

Val Penny has an Llb degree from the University of Edinburgh and her MSc from Napier University. She has had many jobs including hairdresser, waitress, banker, azalea farmer and lecturer but has not yet achieved either of her childhood dreams of being a ballerina or owning a candy store.

Until those dreams come true, she has turned her hand to writing poetry, short stories, nonfiction books, and novels. Her novels are published by SpellBound Books Ltd.

Val is an American author living in SW Scotland. She has two adult daughters of whom she is justly proud and lives with her husband and their cat.

You can find Val at the following places:

What’s the Job of an Author?

I’m reading a 720-page book by an author I didn’t know: Ann-Marie MacDonald. It’s one of the few books I saved from the large pile I gave away before moving, and I’m so glad I did. The book is called

The Way the Crow Flies

One of the things I love about this book is the way the author comes up with thoughts that make me think

Wow, I never thought of it that way before!

Wow, that’s so true!

So far, I’ve only read up to page 187 and this author has managed to do this to me several times. But this time, on page 187, I had to stop reading for some extra reflection.

It’s 1962 on an air force base in Canada, and Jack, one of the main characters has just realised that one of his neighbours, who comes from Germany, is Jewish. In fact, from his eight-year-old daughter, although he hasn’t revealed to her the meaning of the tattoo on his arm, he knows that the neighbour was in a concentration camp.

Jack finds himself replaying conversations with Henry Froelich. Einstein is a Jew. It had sounded anti-Semitic from Froelich’s lips last summer. Of course there is nothing wrong with the word “Jew” – especially if you are one – but there is something about the single syllable, it sounds less polite than “Jewish”. Perhaps the noun sounds anti-Semitic because Jack has rarely heard it pronounced by people other than anti-Semites.

It’s so true. It was true in 1962, and in 2003 when the book was first published, and it’s just as true now. But I’ve never thought about it before. It makes me think of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, but that was written a long time ago and many words have had their meanings changed since then:

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Coming back to Ann-Marie MacDonald, I think this is an important job of authors: to point out truths that readers have glossed over and not considered properly before. Of course, not all novels do this, nor do they have to, but I love it when they do.

It’s taken me a long time to reach page 187. I hope I can find more time for this book and the rest goes more quickly. It’s so well-written.