The Tracker (Sam Callahan, 1)

What a great "anti-hero" hero! He has humor, athleticism, intuition and just the right amount of self-doubt to make him interesting. The believable part is that he is the right age to be a political candidate tracker, the role that positions him to be where he is at the beginning of the story. It is also believable that the political world which serves as the context for the story confirms our worst suspicions. Namely, honor and dishonor exist in politics as it does throughout the human condition; unscrupulous and destructive behavior is found side by side with courage and service. The story tests reality, however, in how it unfolds in such a short period of time, with the variety of action that is involved... and yet Sam is only 24 years old. Shades of Jack Bauer! I do confess that it took about one nano-second to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the story...which I did immensely. I was left anticipating what kinds of situations Sam might help resolve as a thirty-two year old.

The author has created this short, fast-paced, easy-to-read thriller using a writing device that helps us know Sam as a three-dimensional character. The author uses flashbacks to help us know Sam as a child, as someone working out his demons in relationships and as someone doing a job. Knowing Sam's history helps us understand how he could have the skills he needed for this tale and to be sympathetic to his redemption and growth. They also worked to help make me a cheerleader for him and for his girlfriend, Natalie. The author made her a strong, positive character and partner on equal footing. That tone of respect for her made this reader like the author even more. I also liked the presence of some other positive characters who also played important roles in Sam's life: Pastor Isaiah and those geeky, wonderful computer hacks!

Other reviewers have commented about how much they appreciated the restraint the writer used in telling the story. Was there violence in this story? Oh, yes! However, by omitting profanity and graphic sex scenes and by making sure the violence portrayed was relatively non-descriptive, the writer was able a)to keep the focus of the story where it should have been...on how Sam was going to survive this mystery and b) keep the action moving forward.

Hope to read more about Sam and some of the characters introduced in this thriller.

What great writing. The author has a certain rhythm to his writing, which makes the story even more engaging. I loved the back and forth chapters of Sam as a child and then as an adult. I felt like I really got to know him. Lots of heart-pounding moments and a rather surprising ending. No typos; no bad grammar. No long descriptions of landscapes. Very refreshing. Sadly, the descriptions of foster parenting are too true. Plan to stay up all night reading!

Never ending action,, fear and thd thrill of pitting one's wits against the best in the system. The build up is interesting and I found his technique of flashbacks to his life as a foster kid that looks very realistically at some of the biggest failures of this huge system and the types of people who foster and the depravity of men, interspersed with the even more dangerous world of politics and the perhaps even greater depravity that comes with the heady thrill of power . Fascinating for a first novel about a brilliant but tough street kid rescued in his late teens by s loving Pastor and his wife, Our hero a young relatively happy law student in love with a wonderful woman, but who is still deeply scarred from his childhood trauma and unsure of himself and his ability to have relationships with others - especially a loving relationship with a mostly normal young woman who tells him she loves him. Without family, or even truly good friend to call for help or advice or comfort, we needed to feel more for him than you led us to. This book would have been so much better if Zunker has spent the time developimg the m ain character. I guess I'm more disappointed that he put in 2 amazingly strong and caring women, but didn't bother to develope their personalities much, especially when they played such important part s in this fascinating but a bit bof a convoluted story. The fast paced thrill of this surprisingly believable thriller keeps the reader involved enough to read it until the end. But then find is the poorest most undeveloped part of this story and it leaves the reader terribly disappointed. This detailed interesting plot has. A really weak climax leaves us hungry for details. They talk to the CIA.and then the whole complex set of complex groups anc murders are left just hinted at, not explained. The story just suddenly ends. We don't get to know any details of how they discovered anything, or how the CIA interrogated them or learn on how the many characters were discovered, questioned and or murdered. And we learn only a little bit about how this complex scheme was designed, how he and do many from different 3 letter governmental groups got mixed up in this schemdvto protect thr wife of the candidate but also trying to protect this innocent Las student from death as so many try so often to kill him for reasons he knew nothing about. We readers are just dumped out with an "The End." We don't even know for sure if Sam was cleared of all charges. How they worked things out to give him back his life, his character and his life, much less exactly what happened to the Presidential Candidate who was set up, the whole set of murders that occurred because someone was trying to get out of an abusive marriage. Or to what extent the candidate's father pays for having so many peeople silenced. Or anything? Is anyone held accountable for the murders. We don't even find out if the couple is back together or just staying friends. In fact we don't really know if any character learned anything and grew as a result of the incredible events in this political set up of a young man picked out of a crowd because of his lack of a family and foster system escapee with not enough friends him and others like him become the perfect patsies for terrible crimes committed by respectable officials, politicians, governmental groups with all those initials and so much more that would make his reader happy about taking the time to getting into this novel. So Mr Zunker, you have a great action packed almost really excellent plot idea but it feels like you just threw it together with minimum research and little understanding of the importance of characterization in a story with more complex personalities that turn out undeveloped. I loved the concept, just spend a bit more time next time on developing the plot, adding more detail to these complex characters and making your audience care more about your hero and the incredible women that help him as well as adding a satisfying climax and some sort of just as detailed ending. You have great potential and fascinating ideas for your plot. However, you might want to the a few classes about the parts of a good Story and how to build up more real full characters that your reader attaches to enough to go on. And for goodness sake, learn how to end good stories in a way that doesn't drop dead.

Here’s the problem. This is a really good story. Zunker just has a horrible way of telling good stories.

*** Spoliers***

The Tracker is 100 pages too long. The story starts out fast paced and exciting. A political tracker gets a text message. Goes to the address. Witnesses a murder. Now they’re trying to kill him. That is a GREAT opening! I was so excited to continue reading.

Then I wasn’t. After that amazing opening there was chapter after chapter after chapter of nothing. Pages and pages of backstory that slowed the story to a halt. Hundreds of pages worth of how horrible Sam’s life was. How horrible his foster parents were. How horrible his mom was. His stint in jail. It drug on and on and the only reason I continued was to find out who was trying to kill him!

Every time the story would go back to present time I’d get excited and when it would deep dive back to backstory I’d want to throw my phone. Please stop doing this, Zunker.

The first 50 pages were amazing. The last 30 pages were amazing. Everything in between should have been reworked in editing. I suggest beta readers to keep him on track and write the story the readers are there to hear.