I read this in one sitting on a plane and enjoyed it, but I much prefer the Sam Wyndham series by this author. There was no humour here and too much action - it was one of those books where characters repeatedly bounce back from injuries which would put most of us in the hospital. The chapters from different perspectives slowed things down for me - I think they were supposed to make us sympathize with Greg and Sajid in particular, but I would have been happy with more Shreya. I didn't really understand the motivation behind the whole set-up and I didn't feel this was explored sufficiently. Also, I often land at YVR and catch the Sky Train and that whole section seemed geographically dubious to me (although geography isn't really my thing...). ( )

Set during a presidential campaign, a bomb is detonated in a shopping mall in LA, killing many people including the bomber herself, British born Yasmin Alik. FBI agent Sheyra Mistry starts to investigate whilst in London two parents decide to set out in pursuit of their missing errant children, leading to a race against time.

This is quite the rollercoaster of a thriller, taking the reader on an exhilarating ride
with an exciting cat and mouse chase at its heart. It’s definitely a page turner with plenty of twists and turns. I read this via the Pigeonhole app, stave by stave, and I was gripped throughout. Action packed and well written, I can well imagine this edge of your seat nail-biter being adapted into an entertaining film/movie. Audiences would be glued to the screen. ( )

This book was one of the best "thrillers" I've read. Although people do die, it is only a consequence of obvious movement of the plot. The characters matter here as the 2 parents of young people involved in the plot to assassinate presidential candidates and an FBI agent with real morals try to stop the conspiracy in its tracks. They succeed and we discover that another FBI agent is behind it all and not the one that becomes the obvious choice. Good book

THE WASHINGTON POST:

‘Hunted’ has the rush of a thriller without the unnecessary violence
Abir Mukherjee’s new book is an action-packed story that also dives deeply into the stories of the families affected by a crime.
Review by E.A. Aymar
May 4, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Abir Mukherjee. (Stuart Simpson)

The setup may sound familiar, but “Hunted,” the new thriller from Abir Mukherjee, offers a welcome alternative to the typical cops-and-robbers tale.
Days after a terrorist organization kills dozens of people in a Los Angeles shopping mall, law enforcement officials arrest Sajid Khan at his place of employment in London and ruthlessly interrogate and beat him, seeking information about his 18-year-old daughter. This is how Sajid discovers that his beloved daughter, Aliyah, is a key figure in a dangerous terrorist network. When, a few days later, an American woman named Carrie Flynn finds Sajid and explains that her son has a connection to Aliyah and may also be involved with the terrorists, Sajid and Carrie embark on a perilous journey to America to save their children.
This plotline — a terrorist attack on the United States sets off a hunt-and-chase that affects the lives of ordinary people and reveals cracks in the political and social structure of the country — has been written and rewritten endlessly by writers like Vince Flynn, Lee Child and Brad Thor. Mukherjee keeps readers in that well-worn (and beloved) territory while elevating his tale beyond expectations. He dives deeply into the stories of the assailants’ families — the anguish and anxiety experienced by their horrified parents, and the rash decisions they are compelled to make. And he does this without abandoning the rush of a thriller or the complexities of law enforcement, particularly through the character of Shreya Mistry, an FBI agent who consistently defies her superiors as she hopes to stop the next attack on American soil. Mukherjee offers some keen observations, and his everyday heroes are a nice reprieve from the hypermasculine killing machines we typically come across in such books.

(Mulholland)
In his efforts to describe the uneasy political climate in contemporary America, Mukherjee does not shy away from the chaos of real-life politics or pertinent social issues. References are made to the 2016 election and the heartbreak brought on by the 2017 Muslim travel ban. More than simply observing these events, Mukherjee’s characters are particularly well-suited to offer commentary and insight into them, especially Sajid, a Muslim refugee of political violence in Bangladesh and the most clear-eyed and compassionate of the protagonists. Upon learning about the attack in Los Angeles, Sajid notes with concern, “It was taken as fact that the attackers would be Islamists, and suddenly a few hundred extremists with a death wish were taken as proxy for a billion people.”
America, in fact, is observed in almost Tocquevillian fashion as the protagonists race through the country. When passing poverty-struck towns in the Midwest, Sajid wonders: “There had been prosperity here … and yet it had gone. What did that do to people? To be masters of the world and then reduced to poverty? Would it engender anger? Fear?” When he later observes an American political rally, Sajid compares the event to its British counterpart and notes, “While there was certainly something to be said for the enthusiasm and engagement of the American model, without trust or an informed electorate, did it not lead to tribalism?”
These observations, along with forays into familial and romantic drama, never slow the book’s pace. Mukherjee has a knack for ending chapters on earned cliffhangers. Plot twists are largely presented without the strain of incredulity, the suspense is always weighted with emotion, surprising revelations are carefully constructed — and the ending is unexpected, daring and truly beautiful.
“Hunted” marks Mukherjee’s first stand-alone novel after the popular and critically acclaimed Wyndham & Banerjee Mysteries, and fans of those historical mysteries probably won’t be disappointed by the author’s turn to contemporary thrillers. Even if the book treads on familiar territory, Mukherjee proves he has more than enough talent, compassion and insight to tell a compelling, unique story.
E.A. Aymar is the author of the thrillers “They’re Gone,” “No Home for Killers” and “When She Left.”

KIRKUS:
Terrorism in America as imagined by a British Indian crime writer.

Eight days before the end of a toxic presidential campaign that’s “resting on a knife edge,” terrorists blow up a mall in Burbank, California. Sixty-five people die in the carnage, including a woman seen running away from the rucksack holding the bomb. FBI Special Agent Shreya Mistry wonders who the culprit is. Several candidates come to mind, like the “American Redemption fanatics, looking to bomb America back to greatness.” Then fingerprints identify the dead woman as Yasmin Malik, a British Muslim. “Why was she running?” Mistry wonders. “The question surfaced unbidden...a cork bobbing in the maelstrom of her mind.” The hunt is on for the perpetrators, and eyes are on innocent men like Sajid Khan. Was he “just another treacherous Muslim? Guilty until proven innocent”? But it’s more complicated. The bad guys follow the much-feared leader Miriam, a “soldier masquerading as messiah….Amish with a hint of assault rifle.” Some of them are former U.S. military like Greg, who nurses a lingering leg wound from combat and whose neck is tattooed with barbed wire and a swastika. Meanwhile, Mistry has personal baggage and professional problems. The agent hasn’t seen her daughter in months, and her FBI bosses don’t like how she operates—she isn’t called “Shreya Misfit” for nothing. And as befits a feisty hero, her suspension by the FBI doesn’t stop her as she tries to avert another horrific attack. As the constant action unfolds, the terrorists always seem to stay a step ahead of the FBI—it’s almost as if the bad guys have a mole inside the agency. Of the many good lines in the story, “hatred didn’t do nuance” may be the most apt.

This novel will make you shudder. It’s taut, credible, and scary.

Sajid Khan works in a low-paid job, just scraping by but when armed police arrest him and tell him his daughter Aliyah is connected to a terrorist plot he is concerned. FBI agent Shreya is called in to investigate a bomb explosion at a shopping mall but at every turn her investigation is thwarted, seemingly from the inside. Ex-Army Greg realises that he in way over his head but doesn't know how to escape destiny. The US election is just a week away.
I had read some of Mukherjee's previous novels but not all and was quite shocked by this. Looking at the reviews it is a departure and one which will catapult his writing career to a different level. It's a real 'airport' novel, the sort of breathless thriller that sells loads but doesn't necessarily provide much substance. Of its genre its great to read but will it linger, I doubt it. ( )

Powerful thriller!

Abir Mukherjee has served up a fast paced thriller exploring many of the challenges of our society today. Racism, religious tensions, the everyday working class feeling disenfranchised, refugees in despair, ideological conservatism on the rise, Government organizations gone rogue. Citizens feeling their dreams and hope lost, the rise of populist demigods “peddling simple answers to complex situations.”
It takes talent to roll all those factors into your storytelling. Mukherjee does it with ease.
I was disturbed and yet enthralled by the determination of FBI agent Sheyra Mistry as she defied bosses and protocols in her hunt for terrorists who were multi racial, multi religious, and angry. Their actions are being steered by an unknown enemy with contacts at the highest levels.
What follows is a complex, gut wrenching chase that serendipitously is helped by the stubbornness and brilliance of Agent Mistry.
I found the author’s notes extremely enlightening.
Brilliant and heart stopping. I couldn’t put it down. I was enthralled and read into the wee small hours!

A Mullholland ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
Please note: Quotes taken from an advanced reading copy maybe subject to change ( )