In the last few weeks, my primary genre of movies and shows switched. It is not unusual for me to change interests quickly and often, and the newest one I picked – true crime. Having recently visited Alaska (but not Anchorage), it is not surprising that ‘The Hunt’ caught my interest while browsing Audible catalogue.

While I’m not going to go into details of it, please be warned that this is a review of true crime story which involves descriptions of abuse and extreme violence, and reader discretion is advised.

Robert Hansen was born in 1939, in Iowa, United States. After a short move to California, him and his family came back and settled in Pocahontas, Iowa, in 1949. Throughout childhood and adolescence, Hansen had a stutter, and suffered severe acne, which left his face scared. As a result, he felt conscious of it, and had difficulties making friends and meeting girls. Loner and a recluse, Robert also struggled with his father, a domineering and demanding baker with whom Robert was employed for a while. Picking up hunting as a hobby to get his mind off things, Hansen enlisted to Army Reserve for a year. Afterwards, he married a younger woman in summer of 1960, and later that same year, he committed his first crime.

Hansen started off by burning a school bus garage, presumably fuelled by the hatred he hold on to over his unsatisfactory high school experience. Over the next decade, he was also jailed few times for petty theft. Following a divorce, during his second marriage, Hansen and his wife and children moved to Anchorage, Alaska, in search of stability. Robert found himself liked by the locals due to his exceptional hunting skills. In 1971, is when Hansen was first arrested and charged with abduction and assault, but some of the charges were dropped as part of a plea deal. His escalation into madness continued and fuelled by his hatred towards women who rejected him his whole life, he started killing in 1972.

His MO involved stalking a woman (usually a young one, or a sex worker), forcing her into his car under a ruse and taking her to his property. Following abuse and torture, Hansen would release and then hunt the women with his gun, bow or knife, through the Alaskan woods. He was caught in 1983 after one of his victims manage to escape and flag down a passing truck. Over 30 women were assaulted and at least 17 killed by Hansen, but those numbers are suspected to be higher. Robert pleaded guilty to 4 homicides and was sentenced to 461 years in prison, without the possibility or parole. He passed away in 2014 due to natural causes.

I struggle to figure out how to review this book, I ended up summarising it more than anything else. There is not much to it from plot perspective – it happened and it’s absolutely horrible that it did. Ryan Green did a really good job writing and piecing together this story to give a reader disturbing, yet captivating, true crime story. I also enjoyed Steve White’s narration. I know this duo has more true crime stories to listen to and I will make sure to check them out.

It is equally fascinating and terrifying learning about human psyche and how, in case of Robert Hansen, it can lead a man to take out his internal resentment at life on others in brutal and inhumane way. I also didn’t know, I’ve never seen it, but the movie ‘The Frozen Ground’ (2013) with John Cusack and Nicolas Cage, is based on this story, for anyone who may prefer visual material over books. There are also few crime shows which integrated or adapted Hansen’s story for their purposes.

If you don’t enjoy such topics, or are sensitive to such material, I obviously don’t recommend you read it, but for true crime fans, this is an absorbing and rather quick read to check out.