Abir Mukherjee (2024) Hunted

Abir Mukherjee has written five international bestsellers set in 1920s India, (Wyndham & Banerjee) still owned by the English between the First and Second World War. I’ve not read any of them. Hunted is my first stab at his work.

The author informs readers it took three years to write almost 500 pages. He’s from Hamilton. Just up the road from me. I’m not saying that’s a great achievement, coming from Hamilton, many people do.  But if he came from Dalmuir, he might meet somebody that can write 500 pages in a week, or perhaps a fortnight.  

I’ll list the Credits, and suggest which impressed me most was how many of them work for him. Agent. UK Editor. US Editor. Editorial (5). Copy-editor. Proofreader. Managing Editorial. Contracts (7). Design. Audio. Inventory. Publicity (2). Finance (3). Marketing (4). Production (2). Sales (17). Operations (1). Rights (7).

That guy from Dalmuir is a one man and his dog operation and he’s not got a dog and needs to bark up the wrong tree for himself and go fetch his own sticks.

What next impressed me most was who he shared early drafts of his novel with. I recognise three of the seven. Lee Child’s quote gets space on the cover (obviously for the dithering reading, they’re thinking Lee Child—I’m buying into this).

‘Pretty much flawless,’ Lee Child says.

With that many staff, you’d certainly hope so.

Steve Cavanagh gets space on the cover to also offer his opinion. ‘A Rip-roaring thriller.’

Val McDermid also got to see early drafts. It’s a toss of the coin if she’s the most successful Scottish writer between her and Irvine Welsh. She does own a football club, but it’s quite wee and is Raith Rovers (I’m guessing and they’ve not even knocked Rangers out of the Scottish Cup recently). She’s massive. But she doesn’t get a spot on the front or back cover.

Hunted is set in contemporary America. This is where it is intended to sell most copies. A slick whack-a-mole terrorists set against the backdrop of a Presidential election with the clock ticking and more attacks inevitable.  

Vice-President Greenwood and the right-wing challenger Chuck Costa. These characters bear striking resemblances to real-life political figures, drawing clear parallels to the 2024 presidential election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Mukherjee can’t call the moron’s moron out, but what he can do is mirror what so many of us think.

Greenwood with the ‘stuck up smile, the stiff hugs.’

‘It was her good fortune that she was against a narcissist who mixed incompetence with a god complex and still she was continuing to fucking lose.’

On the larger issues. ‘Save America and Take America back’. Take it back from whom, he wondered.

The answer comes later. ‘Your enemy doesn’t travel by dinghy. He travels by private jet’.

Amen to that. There’s a strange disconnect where even the current Vice President, Vance identified Trump/ Costa as "reprehensible" and "an idiot", both of which Mukherjee writes into and not because they’re fictional jumping off points. Perhaps he believes Trump supporters don’t read books?  Read on.

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