The Hunted / The Inheritance, Gabriel Bergmoser

If you do what I did, and get these two books out of order, they will still work, but dear me, combined they tell one hell of a tale about a strong, resiliant young woman called Maggie.

A young woman who grew up in very difficult circumstances with a missing mother, and a drunken violent father (who also happened to be a cop), Maggie's been running from lots of horrible people for a long time.

Starting out with THE HUNTED, when she staggers into a remote service station, badly injured, pursued by some very bad people indeed, only to end up with a standoff between a small group of unlikely people and some very determined and dangerous foes. This outing introduces Maggie, providing some truly horrific circumstances that she is escaping, yet it's also an ensemble cast, with the elderly, grumpy old Frank and his granddaughter and their customers forming an unlikely alliance against an unknown threat, with Maggie, a most unexpected catalyst, in their midst. 

SPOILER ALERT

THE INHERITANCE fleshes out Maggie's backstory. As part of an ongoing narrative that sees her, having escaped into hiding in a North Queensland tourist town, managing to stay under the radar for quite a while, until it all goes very tits up, finding herself in deep trouble again. Returning to Melbourne with an old family friend (although is he really), to try to track down some explanations that go back to her now dead father, she's also looking for a hard drive of his that might have some answers a lot of people want. More importantly for Maggie, it could provide clues on the fate of her missing mother. Can she escape, yet again, and is there ever going to be any peace for a young woman who is most definitely a victim of the sins of her father.

Having listened to both of these on Bolinda audio, I can only describe this as an experience. Maggie's whole existence is dictated by violence and threats, and she has a real struggle on her hands to both survive and thrive. Listening to the epic levels of that, rather than reading it, was close up and disconcerting, creating an extremely insular and quite frightening connection to the story. Right up in your hearing zone, it felt somehow more personal / difficult to process. It made both books, although it has to be said, THE HUNTED was more extreme, have a palpable physical effect on the reader.

Thrillers in style, but with extreme violence and threat to them, both THE HUNTED and THE INHERITANCE aren't comfortable reading / listening. But Maggie's a wonderful character, resilient, strong and slightly on the super-human side of physical capability. For her alone it was well worth sticking with them.