"It started with a body, the head of it pretty much gone, the hands skinned." This eerie introduction to Bret Lott's The Hunt Club sets the tone for this novel of murder, violence, and sinister secrets. The settings are dark and sultry: ramshackle trailers, forgotten burial grounds, and the seedy Hunt Club itself, built on "trash land." Events are witnessed through the eyes of 15-year-old Huger Dillard, smart, precocious, and always at the forefront of some crisis or criminal activity. Huger is also the eyes for his uncle, the owner of the Hunt Club who was left blind from a fire that killed his wife. Huger and "Unc" are unwittingly entangled in a web of murder and deceit, and they must solve this classic whodunit. Assisted by a local cook and her young, deaf daughter, this is a fresh and innovative detective team. The Hunt Club is a thrill ride all the way, a mix of gloriously grotesque characters, forbidding landscapes, and rotten crimes.