Assassin

Shaun was very prolific in the Eighties, and with this novel you often wonder why he could have been so successful. The trick with Hutson is not to take him seriously both in his style and content and more often than not as an author also. There are all the usual clichés with Hutson’s work in this novel. The guy who works for the gang boss having a secret affair with his girlfriend, the bad cop who is getting paid off, the snitch in the gang etc. There are also plenty of recurring descriptive passages within the novel and many a time I found myself thinking I was reading a page I had read earlier. A bit lazy to say the least. Hutson for me is like the easy reading of the horror genre. He does certain things very well, the gore for example.

Every book of his I’ve read, I have always found myself putting it down for a few minutes, such is the graphic content, most of which really does turn your stomach. However this style only lasts so long before you get bored of it, unless of course you are a pubescent teenager who thinks all the gore and sex in his novels is still classed as edgy and current. Are his books like the movies? Maybe. A little. But then these movies are straight to DVD titles that you would typically only watch once.

If it is an easy read you are after though, then please step right up and look no further. Hutson’s books will make you want to heave at times, will give you a semi if you are younger than 18 and will make you turn page after page without wanting to stop. Assassin is basically a story of a crime boss whose gang is being murdered by somebody unknown. In an attempt to discover and stop the killings, Harrison the crime boss hires a hitman to take out all the other gang leaders. Meanwhile a group of sick anti-rich kids are mutilating every rich person in London, Harrison included. Mix with that a group of zombie gang members who want revenge on Harrison and what you have is a typical Hutson plot where he tries to throw people off the scent towards the end of the book. Does he manage it? I will leave that to you to decide if you read this book. Not one of his best, not one of his worst, but so many of his novels are alike that you do need to look at the front cover every now and again to remind yourself which book of his you are reading.