Rating: 
Summary: Manhattan Hunt Club
Review: Mr Saul is one of the best writers! But this book was below his standards, i had trouble finishing it. It started slow and just got slower. I didnt like it at all. Maybe the next book will be better... i hope.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost Under Manhattan
Review: Are you ready for another anxiety dream? John Saul provides one with The Manhattan Hunt Club. Jeff Converse is a promising architecture student at Columbia University in New York. Although he is from a working class background he and Heather Randall, a child of privilege, are in love. The only fly in the ointment is that neither his parents nor hers approve. Everything falls apart when Jeff, riding the subway late one night, surprises a mugger who is brutally attacking a woman. He chases the mugger away, then turns to help the woman. As he leans over her she wakes, sees his face, and starts to struggle. At that moment a train pulls in and passengers, seeing the struggle, attack and subdue Jeff. Only Heather and Jeff's father believe his story. The victim saw only Jeff, and the subway riders saw the only the struggle. Jeff sticks to his story. He is convicted. The judge, because of Jeff's previously unblemished record and his forthright stance, maintaining his innocence, imposes a light sentence. The causes much dismay and displeasure on the part of the victim, the press, and speakers for minority communities. One the way from the holding area to prison Jeff's van is hit by another vehicle and Jeff is pulled from the wreckage and led into the subway system. From there he is spirited into a maze of dark, subterranean but man-made passages. From his architecture studies he knows he is in the multilevel labyrinth of utility tunnels, abandoned subway and train passages, and storm and sewer lines that lie beneath the bustle of Manhattan. This labyrinth is only partially mapped and is now inhabited by the homeless, including the unfortunate, the unable, and the unrepentant. There is another element'predators who make up The Manhattan Hunt Club. These well-to-do people combine their thirst for vengeance against those who have avoided just punishment from society with their thrill of the hunt. The result is somewhat formulaic, but grippingly told. Saul very effectively uses stereotypes to satirize stereotypes. The ending is both anticipated and yet with a strange twist. I haven't decided yet whether the ending is weak or very poetic. You decide.
Rating: 
Summary: The Manhattan Hunt Club
Review: A big departure for John Saul. Book starts a little slow but once we are introduced to the Manhattan Hunt Club things really start to take off. No monsters and no creepy old houses this time around. Some of his best characters.
Rating:
Summary: MHC No Vacancy
Review: Jeff Converse was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Falsely accused of rape and attempted murder, Converse is arrested and sentenced to serve just 1 year at Rikers. While enroute to Rikers a fatal accident occurs and Converse is one of three people killed. Almost everyone accepts his death, except his father. The fact is that Jeff Converse has been dragged into the tunnels of Manhattan to become part of a big secret game. The MHC puts on this game. John Saul has chosen to write a thriller this time around, as opposed to the horror novel. Good choice John. I'll say one thing about this story; I'll never look at subways the same way again. This has been a suspenseful foray into the depths of Manhattan that kept my interest to the end. Though at times predictable I think John Saul is still at the top of his game. Inside the covers: to allow for society's elite to do what was necessary in private, without the necessity of convincing a seemingly uneducable public to find the spine to do the right thing. The 100 Club. Highly Recommended
Rating:
Summary: Underground, Underdeveloped
Review: This book has a great premise. New York City's most powerful people use the tunnels under the city for their own private hunting ground. It's too bad Mr. Saul didn't develop it further. The book moves along great for the first two-thirds. Then...boom...he wraps everything up in a flash. The end needed time to develop...build the suspense. Instead, he just threw everything out on the table at once and it was over. I can't critique it further for that would require giving away the end. I won't ruin the decent read someone will get out of this. In the end, it is worth a read but that read will go by so quickly you will be begging for more. (And that IS a bad thing)
Rating: 
Summary: John Saul Has Gone To New Depths
Review: In "The Manhattan Hunt Club," John Saul has gone into new territory both with the geographic setting of the novel and his literary reach. MHC will attract and inspire new fans because of its well told mystery appeal and it's almost cinema-like action and characters. This compelling book explores the life under New York City in the tunnels, air ducts, subways and crevices that are the residences of thousands of homeless in New York City. MHC brings home a strong social message that the much heralded triumph over homeless people has literally been pushed underground. Mayor Rudy "Combover" Guliani cannot be pleased at the flurry of media attention MHC is likely to inspire underneath his backyard. Any Saul fan will cherish this tale, yet this is a perfect place to start for those who have never been taken on one of Saul's amazing rides.
Rating:
Summary: A blockbuster read...should be a blockbuster movie
Review: John Saul has really turned on the thrills and chills. Never before has he had such a cast of unusual and absolutely fascinating characters. He explores what really is happening under the streets of Manhattan and I believe every heart stopping moment. If you love to be drawn into a story and love "not being able to put a book down" you'll love Manhattan Hunt Club. Where are all the movie producers for John Saul's work?
Rating:
Summary: Terrifyingly enthralling
Review: In NYC, Cindy Allen exits the train at the 110th Street stop when an assailant attacked her and started to smash her face into the concrete. Graduate student Jeff Converse comes to her aid, chasing the perpetrator away, and trying to take care of Cindy. When she regains consciousness, she assumes that Jeff attacked her and begins screaming. The police arrest Jeff for the crime. He is convicted of attempted rape and attempted murder and sent to Riker's Island to serve his sentence. Before the van carrying him reaches its prison destination, a vehicle sideswipes it. Jeff manages to get out before the van explodes. His 'rescuer' leaves Jeff through the sub-tunnels under Bellevue before releasing him to try to escape in the subway tunnels. The herders chase Jeff as a hunting tribe stalks its prey and all exits contain members of the clan. Any reader who enjoys an action packed thriller filled with pulse pounding suspense will love THE MANHATTAN HUNT CLUB. The tunnel scenes are not for the claustrophobic yet the underground subculture comes across as a thriving society. Though the legal thriller was heading towards greatness, the turn into sociological thriller works because John Saul takes his audience on an express ride that requires one sitting to determine whether the hunters captured their quarry. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Interesting suspense tale
Review: The promising future of New York City college student Jeff Converse is destroyed when he is accused of a crime he didn't commit. After the victim swears Jeff is the man who assaulted her, Jeff is convicted and sentenced, but on his way to the prison, he is abducted and lured to the underground tunnels of New York, where he will become game for a vicious group of hunters who call themselves "THE MANHATTAN HUNT CLUB". Determined to escape alive, Jeff will use all his wits to come out the victor, and clear his name. Jeff's parents are told he is dead, and only after viewing the horribly burned body, does Keith Converse realize his son is alive. Now, teaming with Jeff's fiancée, Keith and Mary Converse must enter into the labyrinth tunnels below the city to find their son and bring him back alive, and put a stop to the twisted individual heading up this murderous club. 'Manhattan Hunt Club' is an enjoyable suspense novel, fans looking for horror will be disappointed. John Saul has taken the high road to action/suspense, and he does a good job of it. Combining a creepy plot, and his usual cast of likable characters, Mr. Saul goes full steam ahead with an action novel that takes off on the first page, and barrels through twist after twist, leading to a shocking and satisfying conclusion. Nick Gonnella
Rating: 
Summary: Manhattan Hunt Club
Review: This is my first John Saul experience.
It's apparent that Saul is a good writer, especially in comparison to other contemporary fiction writers. And the story, involving hidden underground subcultures engaged in hunting criminals in pursuit of vigilante justice, is pretty intriguing and imaginative (though at times a bit much).
The characters are developed only enough for modern mass market fiction. And the story, in context, is fairly believeable. But it lags. As a reader, I often felt as frustrated and hopeless as the protagonists lost in the underground tunnels of Manhattan. Sometimes I didn't really care if they got out or not.
The homeless are portrayed as caricatures of themselves. They are totally unbelievable characters, either completely satisfied and even upwardly mobile in their homeless lifestyle or straight-up derelicts with no past, present or future.
I also found it annoying that the most dangerous character was a serial killer whose psychosis was inextricably entertwined with his repressed sexuality. Didn't the portrayal of gay characters as psychotically deranged sociopaths fall out of style in the 60s??
In any case, it's fine for a paperback. Just remember to please put litter in its place.
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