Ottawa lawyer and author Nick Wikshire is an experienced thriller writer; this is his seventh novel. Like many successful practitioners of the craft, Wilshire has a formula: set the story in an exotic locale – this time, the Yukon; make the protagonist a diplomat (real or purported) who’s somewhat unused to investigating crimes; and have a deadline by which the action must resolve. This one, however, does not feature Charlie Hillier, protagonists of his earlier books set in Havana, Moscow, and Tokyo.
I enjoyed The Hunt, partly because it reminded me how few Canadian thrillers are set in our far North. There is the occasional lyrical response to place here: ““Aurora Borealis,” Townsend said, as they both stood on the edge of the treeline, watching as the sky changed from green to blue, punctuated by dancing rays of yellow, green and red, as though some celestial giant was waving a colourful flashlight from a perch high above the atmosphere.”
However, as befits someone who lived in Whitehorse for five years, Wilkshire does not flaunt his knowledge of the north, but works it into details of hunting expeditions, bush planes, guns, and the local belief that visiting strangers are only cheechakos (greenhorns or tenderfoots) until they have enough experience to become sourdoughs.
The cheechako here is Ben Matthews, a CIA operative who recently smudged his career playbook with a bungled operation. Instead of the posting to London he wanted, he’s sent to Vancouver, just before a former American Vice President and his friend, once the Canadian ambassador to the US, go missing on a hunt for bighorn sheep. Matthews meets Lee Sawchuck, a woman RCMP sergeant who grew up in the north, can hunt, shoot and fly a bush plane without one of them pesky licences, and has a keen ear for bull when she hears it. She suspects this CIA city slicker is not telling her all he knows, and yet he needs her local knowledge and skills to track the missing VIPs down. This unlikely partnership evolves into romance. Meanwhile, clues convince them some big operation is going down in four days. The title has a double meaning: there is an actual big-game hunt, but those hunters are themselves tracked and killed by a nasty, ex-Russian special forces killer. He is then hunted by Matthews and Sawchuk.
So, to sum up, this is a high-quality thriller with a very Canadian setting. It’s got all the required elements: suspense, a hero trying to make up for a past mistake, violence, a deadline, a very contemporary source of potentially billions of dollars, some romance, some twists, and a traitor. For those who like their suspense stories in unfamiliar settings, it’s a great ride.
About the Author
Originally from St. John’s, Nick Wilkshire is a lawyer and author who spent five years in the Yukon before settling in Ottawa. The Hunt is his seventh novel.
About the Reviewer
John Oughton lives in Toronto and has retired as a Professor of Learning and Teaching at Centennial College in Toronto. He is the author of six poetry collections, most recently The Universe and All That (Ekstasis Editions), the mystery novel Death by Triangulation, and over 400 articles, reviews and interviews. John’s studies include an MA in English Literature, where his teachers included Irving Layton, Frank Davey, Eli Mandel and Miriam Waddington, and non-credit courses at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, where he worked with Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, William Burroughs and Robert Duncan. John is a long-time member of the Long Dash Poetry Group. He is also a photographer and guitar player. https://joughton.wixsite.com/author
Book Details
ISBN: 9781778530630 , 9781778530631
Publish Date: 2025 / 09 / 30
Page Count: 296
Breakwater Books