Time to Hunt is the third book in a series, and I have not read the first two. While there may be information about Pierce Hunt in the first two, I’m afraid I’ll never know.

This book opens with what is to me a laughable action: an operative in Turkey, awakening suddenly in a bed, “diving” for a pistol that is under the other pillow on the bed. A team of black-clothed commandos bursts in and takes him away. He’s tortured a few chapters later and at the end of that, it seems he is dying/has died.

Meanwhile, a CIA officer named Triggs is with her son, tracking down Pierce Hunt in the Bahamas. She was told not to go to Turkey to hunt down Jorge Ramirez (who apparently is someone they’ve been hunting in the first two books), so in the spirit of renegade officers everywhere, she sends someone else.thus, the dude bed diving. Her son Max is her second in command, and they talk about sending the badass Hunt to Turkey with another operative to get the bed diving guy back.

Their vehicles are attacked, and Max sends his mother down the hill behind them after she’s been shot. As she makes a break for it, their vehicle is hit with an RPG and explodes, and her son with it, apparently.

I’ll stop there for spoiler reasons, in the event you want to read this.

This is one of those very rare instances that a book is a DNF for me. At 15% (according to the progress meter on my Fire), we find out who the bad guy is. At 18%, he has a very lengthy internal monologue, letting us know all about his motivation and his plans.

How can you write a thriller when one of the pieces that should be thrilling but that is not present here is the hunt for the bad guy, sniffing them out, flushing them from cover out into the open so the denouement is satisfying? I know the ultimate bad guy is Ramirez, but short of capturing/killing him, someone else has to take his place in each book, and if I’m told who it is and why he’s doing things, it really blunts the part of my mind that cares about what happens, since it’s likely that person will be caught/killed.

Sadly, I cannot recommend this. As always, your mileage may vary.

Two stars out of five.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the review copy.