"Hunters in the Dark"

"Hunters in the Dark," by Lawrence Osborne, was completely unexpected from start to finish. Nothing about it was predictable. What I thought was going to be a tale of someone running for his life turned out to be someone running from his life. Robert, an Englishman, visits Cambodia while on holiday from his job as a teacher and, following a few 'lucky' turn of events, decides he doesn't want to go back. The life of living day-to-day, never knowing what tomorrow will bring or when you will run out of money, calls to Robert in a way that nothing he has encountered ever has. The book was unpredictable because just as I thought I knew how the rest of the story was going to play out - a new character or scenario was added and my thoughts were derailed.

Lawrence Osborne has a way of writing that is so beautiful and descriptive, without being too detailed. He gives the reader only the necessary information for their imaginations to take flight and fill in the rest of the scenery. The story itself though is a little slow and at some points, boring. The first 40 pages of the book could probably be condensed into 10. There wasn't a lot there to hold a readers attention. This happened a few other times throughout the book as well. To the authors credit, I believe he was trying to convey what life would really be like as a drifter and that lifestyle would undoubtedly come with unexciting slow times. However, as a reader, I don't necessarily want to read three pages straight about the different restaurants that Robert ate at and what he had to eat at each place.

 

Other than that, "Hunters in the Dark" was beautifully written and it has a very unique story. Robert is a character that has the guts (or the stupidity) that we all wished we possessed at times to be able to do something drastic with our lives. I didn't absolutely love this book, but I didn't hate it either. I probably will not be reading it again though, so 3 out of 5 stars. There are references to sex (nothing graphic) and a handful of F-words throughout the text. So if you are looking for something completely clean, then skip over this book. I don't think anyone who hasn't lived on their own, or had to pay their own bills, will be able to relate to Robert, so I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone younger than at least college age. I received my copy of "Hunters in the Dark" from Blogging for Books for this review. You can get your hands on a copy by clicking here. Check it out and let me know what you think!