Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic, superb, wonderful
Review: A beautifully crafted tale that will drag you in instantly. The story revolves around (MC), his father and lover, Heather. The central story is very standard at first. Jeff Converse interrupts a brutal rape. His interference stops the attacker, but the victim sees only him and he is falsely accused ... and sentenced.
And this is where the story throws a curveball. On the way to prison, the transport van is involved in a car crash. Jeff is pulled from the wreck and taken into the subway. Following his rescuer, he is led into the underground world. And taken to a dark room, where he meets Jagger. A real messed up dude who confuses friendship for love, he has hidden homosexual needs. He's also a big guy.
They are introduced to the "game". Get out of the underground tunnels and you go free. Sounds easy enough. What they don't know is that armed homeless guys itching to kill guard each exit.
Throw into the mix, Jinx, a homeless girl who lives in the tunnels under the city, who through her own research (and knowledge of the crime of which Jeff is accused) finds out for sure that Jeff is innocent. She decides to enter the "hunting arena" and help him escape.
Also entering the tunnels are his father and lover Heather. Who father is in "The Hunt Club".
This book rocked. I do have a few complaints though:
Jeff is not made to seem real, a badly crafted character. I didn't care if he lived or not. I did though, care about the father and Jinx. These characters are well drawn. The father is easy to dislike.
Heather and her fathers relationship is not developed (could be an editorial dispute), so who cares if she kills him.
One minute, Jeff's father is carrying a 7.62mm M-14A1 next he is handling a Steyr SSG-PI. Hmm.
Sometimes, the viewpoint changed for like a paragraph, one minute we are reading Jeff's thought and worries, next paragraph Jagger interrupts, then back to Jeff. Luckily it doesn't happen very often and is easy to miss.
Good points:
The story flows easily and reads just as easily.
The confusion (resulting in Jeff's arrest) is well explained from the viewpoint of the victim.
The ending rush through the underground world is tense
Overall this book is well worth a few days to read, yes a few days. It'll hook you as most John Saul's books do. One thing was missing from the ending though, what happened to Jeff's conviction? It wasn't mentioned, three subplots were closed and closed kind of "too" nicely. But it really bugs me not to know what happened with the conviction.
Rating: 
Summary: Stereotypes galore
Review: As someone who is interested in the underground and people who supposedly live beneath the surface, I was eager to pick up this book, but I had to stop reading after a dozen pages. Not only is the writing style distractingly dumbed down, but the homeless are demonized in a way that reminded me of stereotypical racist literature. Like they are from another planet. Unfortunately something that seemed to be about an interesting subject deteriorated within the first few pages.
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: Cliched Suspense
Review: John Saul has been writing clichéd horror novel after clichéd horror novel for years. Not that that's a bad thing - his novels are usually compelling and, at the very least, fun to read. Manhattan Hunt Club provides Saul fans with a different twist however. No supernatural occurrences, no possessed children, no haunted houses. Instead, Saul gives readers a pretty standard thriller. As with most of Saul's novels, the characters are under-developed, the plot is straightforward, the action often intense but the outcome predictable. Manhattan Hunt Club is a simple novel yet the plot is interesting enough to draw readers in. I personally thought that Saul could have introduced a little more background about the NYC underground world. Additionally, as other reviews have pointed out, the coincidences in the novel were ridiculous. While the novel wasn't at all plausible, these coincidences made it seem even more ridiculous. Overall, Manhattan Hunt Club is a fun read. Its not a fabulous novel, nor is it horrible. Just entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Great story - highly reccomend!
Review: Many years ago I read Sleepwalk by John Saul and wasn't overly impressed. After that expereince I decided to cut JS out of my "need to read" category and focused on other authors.
However, a while back while shopping at a discount store w/ my wife, I stumbled on this book and thought it looked interesting enough to shell out a couple bucks for it. I'm glad I did! Although I probably won't run out and read all of Saul's work, I was pleasantly surprised by my enjoyment of this book. From the first couple pages, I was hooked.
The story is very nicely woven together for an enjoyable ride. He did a good job of being just descriptive enough, without overdoing it. The details of life in the tunnels are belivable, as well as the characters. There was really only one glaring part of the book that could have been tied up better (SPOILER: more detail on what happend to Jeff when the hunt was over - did he go back to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence, or did Jinx testify so he was found innocent). The detail and enjoyment of the rest of the book overshadowed this missing info, and made the book a delightful read.
Overall it is a quick enjoyable book that I couldn't put down. I think I read it in only a few days. I'm not sure when I'll pick up another John Saul book next, but I'm sure glad I picked up this one!
Rating:
Summary: A near-perfect thriller, inspired by a documentary film...
Review: Reading this book will take every reader back to their early school days of "The Most Dangerous Game" wherein the likeable, resourceful innocent is coldly and dispassionately pursued through the dark by the almost overwhelming evil. This was my first dive into John Saul's dark and twisted imagination and I can't say I was disappointed. In its pages, you will find again absolute power corrupting absolutely, the strength and power of love and a wonderful receipe for "track rabbit". Although the obvious plot and characters were somewhat predictable, I must confess that it was an overall good read. Perhaps that came from being a New York City homeboy who has spent way too many hours commuting below ground and wondering what really lies in those black tunnels. Perhaps I have always been curious about where the houseless spend most of their time. Maybe, I just like the thrill of the hunt. Maybe, you will too.
Rating:
Summary: Fun But Predictable
Review: This book is vintage Saul; take too many under-developed characters, place them in a suspenseful plot full of twist and turns which eventually result in a big, suspenseful, over-the-top finale. The Manhattan Hunt Club is a very good summer read; it's the kind of book that reads itself quickly and which you can't help but find entertaining. The plot is simple in itself; a society of rich, high-class socialites have developed the ulitmate game. They send prisoners down the subway tunnel systems where they hunt them to death. Our main hero, Jeff, becomes a huntee but, of course, he isn't guilty of the crimes he is accused of. He needs to run away from the hunters and survive their attacks. Mix to this about half a dozen more characters, including a female politician, Jeff's father and mother, Jeff's girlfriend and Jinx, a young girl who lives in the tunnels and you get a book that is very full. Maybe even a little too full. Sure, the tale moves along quickly and it is very suspenseful, but stopping at just a little over 300 pages, the book never gives you the satisfaction of truly knowing any of the characters. Saul spends too much time on suspense and not enough time developing the characters. Hence, you end up not really caring for any of them. Still, the book offers some great moment and the 75-pages finale is pretty great. This is a good summer read. It's classic Saul, but it's not Saul at his best.
Rating:
Summary: The Hunt Is On
Review: This is the first novel by John Saul that I have read. It was a thrilling page turner and a fast read. Characters are thinly drawn and some plot twists don't make sense ( but these are common flaws of this genre). I would never have read this if it had not been recommended by a friend. It was a nice piece of mind candy.
Rating:
Summary: Suspenseful But Not A Bookshelf Keeper. 3 Stars ***.
Review: This remided me of Harlen Coben's Gone For Good: you'll want to get to the end no matter what, but afterwards you don't find it worthy to occupy a place on your bookshelf-not the kind of read that you could pick up a few months after reading it and find favorite chapters to want to read again. Nothing surprising here, but a hell of a lot better than Stephen King's last one, From A Buick 8 < stay clear from this one! Worth the price to read once and that's it. 3 STAR RATING.
Rating:
Summary: Loved It!
Review: This story had a few twists and I loved it. It kept me reading into the night.
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