Blood Hunt (FBI Agent Aria Hunt 2) by Chase Austin-review
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date April 19, 2026
A judge walks into a small-town police station at 3:19 AM and confesses to a murder he cannot describe, in a location he cannot name, to a victim he cannot identify.
By morning he is gone from a locked cell. Vanished in thin air.
In the desert mountains of Veil Canyon, Nevada, a body has been found deep inside Devil’s Backbone Mine. Arranged. Preserved. Identical to a body found five years ago in the same chamber. And twenty-two years before that, three sisters who were never recovered.
The pattern is not new. It is simply starting again.
FBI Special Agent Aria Hunt sees patterns where others see chaos. It is the thing that makes her exceptional—and impossible. When Judge Alexander Ashworth walks out of a locked cell leaving nothing behind but a wolf carving and a note with her name on it, she has no choice but to follow the pattern to where it leads.
More than a hundred feet underground. Into a mine that has been taking people for over two decades and giving nothing back.
A missing girl. A compromised deputy still standing in the dark. A judge who planned every detail before he ever walked through a door. And something in the chamber below that the CO readings and the infrasound frequencies and the gas readings can almost explain.
Almost. Hunt must witness. The note said so. She intends to do more than witness.
When FBI is out of leads, they bring in Special Agent Aria Hunt, a brilliant mind buried in the Records Division, known only to a few as “The Pattern Hunter.” Diagnosed with Level 1 Autism, Aria doesn’t think like other agents. She sees connections no one else can—quiet details, forgotten cases, anomalies lost in the archives.
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REVIEW: BLOOD HUNT is the second instalment in Chase Austin’s contemporary, adult FBI Agent Aria Hunt psychological crime drama focusing on neuro-divergent FBI Agent Aria Hunt, an agent who sees everything in patterns. BLOOD HUNT can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story line is revealed where necessary.Aria Hunt was first introduced in the author’s Sam Wick Universe
Told from several omniscient third person perspectives BLOOD HUNT follows in the aftermath of the discovery of another body, ritually preserved and presented deep inside Devil’s Backbone Mine in Veil Canyon, Nevada. Several victims, over twenty-two years, culminates in another discovery wherein FBI Agent Aria Hunt is personally requested to witness the arrangement, the pattern, and the relationships over the twenty-two years.
The world building focuses on the clues or lack of thereof. Murdered and missing victims, an unexplained smell and sound, the dampness, the aura, the inevitable spiral of the people searching for the truth, as law enforcement find themselves caught between reality and the possibility of something else.
There is a large ensemble cast of interesting and desperate secondary and supporting characters including Sheriff Wade Dalton, Deputy Mackenzie Reynolds, Deputy Woodpecker, Deputy Ortiz, Deputy Green, Deputy Jim Brannigan, Judge Alexander Ashworth, Assistant Director Katherine Vance, Special Agent Daniel Garrett, Aria’s assistant Robert ‘Rook’ Finch, and a host of townsfolk hoping for answers.
BLOOD HUNT is a story of secrets and suspense, intriguing and the unexplained, murder and madness. The slow building premise is detailed, dramatic and dark-more of a written narrative of thoughts, descriptors, possibilities and patterns.FBI Agent Aria Hunt does not appear until half way through, as we are up close and personal with law enforcement as they struggle to make sense of what happened. BLOOD HUNT ends on a cliff hanger-you have been warned.
Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Sandy
