Rifle Season

A Thriller

By: Pat Kelly

Narrated by: Pete Simonelli

A game hunter is in a race against time to save his family from the most dangerous predator on earth—other people—in this high-stakes thriller in the vein of Jack Carr and Peter Heller.

Mason “Mace” Winters, with his acclaimed reputation as one of the best big game hunters in Colorado, lives for the thrill of the hunt. His lucrative career guiding the wealthy on intense hunts through the Colorado mountains is suddenly brought to a stop when an accident hangs an involuntary manslaughter conviction around his neck. Now he’s relegated to a life of trash pickup in the very wilderness where his prowess as a tracker and killer was the stuff of legends.

At rock bottom, Mace descends into a haze of Tito’s and sativa when two strangers seek him out. They wave enough cash under his nose to convince him to help them up into the mountains he knows so well on the opening day of Colorado’s rifle season. An innocent enough request, and the perfect cover for the trip’s true purpose: to assassinate an infamous warlord. All at once, Mace goes from unwitting to unwilling accomplice and it will take all his now dusty skills to outfox his patrons in their deadly game.

Excellent Story! Bravo to the author!!

This is a wonderful story. Great plot, incredible character development, and perfect suspense. Couldn’t quit listening. Can’t wait for the next one.

excellent story, pacing, and reveals

As a first entry into the field, Mace is a character you empathize with and come to care for quickly. the hurt and struggle sound real, which makes the redemption sweeter. looking forward to the next book already!!

Wild, Page Turner, and couldn’t stop Listening

I really enjoyed this book and how it felt so realistic. I cannot wait until the next volume. Learned about this author from a podcast “Hunting Stories Podcast and I’m really glad that I listened to the whole book.

Anti-hunting bias and lack of background research ruins what could’ve been a good story.

Rifle Season is full of slurs against American hunters. Poachers, drunks, reckless, ignorant, callous. Kelly never misses a chance to get a dig in throughout, depicting every hunter in the story with some tired and stereotypical trope.

Add to that repeated misstatements about firearms and accessories reveal no real effort to understand the hunting community which pumps billions into conservation each year through licenses, permits, and taxes on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment.

The title and summary led me to think this would be an entertaining book for a longtime hunter like me. Instead it was a distracting propaganda piece throwing shade at American sportsmen and women. I won’t be continuing in this series.