Somebody's hunting heads....

Number (10) in my list of 1001 authors and books you really need to read before you die is Headhunter by Michael Slade; a superior horror-thriller that is notable for the fact that it is so exceptionally written and chock-full of nasty twists, turns and surprises! Set in and around Vancouver, it follows a task-force of Canadian Mounties as they struggle to track down a vicious and deadly serial killer admidst a wholescale media frenzy....nothing new in that you might think, but this is one thriller that if you have not come across before, you really really need to pick up! Just when you think everything has been resolved and that the story is all over, Slade takes everything you thought you knew and throws it on its head for a shocking and gruesome finale that leaves you positively reeling with shock and excitement!

Michael Slade was the pseudonym for a team of Canadian Criminal lawyers who teamed together to turn writer and wrote a whole series of dark thriller novels known as the Special X series featuring a cast of characters who, for the most part, all got their first debut here! Special X are not actually formed until the third novel in the series, Cutthroat, but events in this book have repercussions all the way through the series right up until the last novel written by the original team which was Shrink, or Primal Scream as it would later be known. Following Shrink, the original team disbanded and writing duties were taken up by just one of the lawyers alongside his daughter, Rebecca Clarke. Arguably, after this acromonial split from his colleagues, the books slightly went down in quality whilst still featuring those characters of the original Special X team who had managed to survive. Headhunter though, remains to this day the strongest and most shocking of all the novels that followed and is right up there with my favourite books of all time!

Honestly when it comes to dark thrillers, they don't get much darker than this.....!