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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional debut novel, 20 Jan 2005
An absolutely exceptional debut novel, as good as any debut I've read this decade. Stag Hunt weaves an intricate story, working on many different levels, with very well developed characters. And, unusually for a debut, the author makes excellent use of location and setting, with the old mansion house, the grounds and even the weather becoming characters in their own right, adding to the atmosphere of this thriller. In addition, the book has a number of comments to make concerning divisions brought about by class, the desire for revenge and the demons that so many of us have, and this is the situation the main, extremely likeable character in the book is thrust into; a main character who has his own unresolved issues. What is also impressive is that there is no a convenient, happy ending, but even this is realistic and composed in it's execution. Throughout the book, the language is beautifully constructed, especially in the depiction of setting, yet this does not affect the pace of the story All in all, an extremly worthwhile read - it echoes of a more focussed alternative to Donna Tarrt's "The Secret History" and I await the author's second novel with interest.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
elctric, creepy thriller, 1 Oct 2004
Picked this up at the airport because of the cover. Read it in two sittings. Gets off to a slow start, but then the pace kicks in. Scared the bejeesus out of me towards the end. Takes place during a stag weekend in a creepy country house. There's a mad killer on the loose, one of the guests. All quite Agatha Christi, but seen through a warped lens. The language is unusually fancy for this sort of book, and the characters are fully developed. Maybe that's why it sometimes seems a bit slow, because Mcgowan takes time to get into their heads. He certainly got into mine. All in all my best read this year.
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Boring, full of plot cliches, 1 Feb 2007
THE BOY who was bullied and abused at school organises a gathering of his tormentors later in life and takes his revenge. Oh dear, this plot is not merely tired but totally exhausted, and Anthony McGowan has failed to breathe any new life into it at all. The narrator is Matthew Moriarty, a paper-thin character who lives in a seedy flat in Kilburn and hates himself because of an incident with a girl in Tunisia which, when we finally find out about it, turns out to be breathtakingly banal. Anyway, Moriarty is the working class foil against which the toffs measure their superiority, and he takes us in tedious detail through a stag party weekend in deepest Cornwall where whoever it is that is taking revenge is sure taking his time about getting round to it. About the only original twist is that we initially don't know who it is exactly that is pulling the strings. It's only in the last handful of pages that things start happening, and by that stage we so dislike absolutely everyone in the book that we wish that the murderer would kill them all, Moriarty included. Lots of reading, very few thrills.
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