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Mole Hunt

By Paul Collins

Book 1 in The Maximus Black Files

(3 customer reviews)

$19.95

In a galaxy of cutthroat companies, shadowy clans and a million agendas, spy agency RIM barely wields enough control to keep order.

Maximus Black is RIM’s star cadet. But he has a problem. One of RIM’s best agents, Anneke Longshadow, knows there’s a mole in the organisation. And Maximus has a lot to hide.

“A quirky turn of phrase, combined with a large dose of humour will attract readers who like something extra with their SF” Magpies

“A cross between Total Recall, Dexter and The Girl With the Golden Tattoo” Bookseller + Publisher

“The pace would give Matthew Reilly a nose bleed” Buzz Words

Cover designed by Grant Gittus.

Buy The Series

  • Mole Hunt
  • +
  • Dyson's Drop
  • +
  • The Only Game in the Galaxy
Price for all:   $59.85

3 reviews for Mole Hunt

  1. Anastasia Gonis

    Maximus Black is the youngest recruit to ace all areas of training in the spy agency RIM (Regis Imperium Mentatis), the galactic law enforcement agency. He is single-minded in his quest to uncover the co-ordinates to the weapon caches belonging to the Old Empire that have been hidden away for ages. At seventeen, the big plans for his life are supported by his exceptional intelligence and mastery of data collection and disguise. This will give him power and control over the Galaxy. Nothing and no one is getting in his way. A trail of dead bodies early in the book establishes his position and character in the story.

    Maximus has been allocated the task of uncovering the mole in the company. The greatest irony is that he is the mole. But because of his unique skills, he is able to manipulate all information – coded and otherwise – to his benefit, shielding himself from suspicion by creating smoke screens.

    The only threat to Maximus’ ambition is Anneke Longshadow who has vowed to bring him down. Anneke is a warrior; courageous, capable, focused, and determined. She appears equally as intelligent as, and apparently more resourceful than Maximus. She has different things to prove.

    Both characters have secrets and secret pasts; have experienced grief and loss of family. They are action super-heroes similar to those of the comic books, warring against the good and evil inside and outside their selves. Their violence, energy and power are matched to the forces of nature that surrounds them in the Galaxy.

    Mole Hunt is action-focused, vicious and bloody. The characters are constantly challenged by their fast-changing circumstances. This trilogy would make a terrific movie. Visual scenes are formed vividly in the reader’s mind due to the extraordinary writing style, and the tension is palpable throughout the book.

    A trailer for the book can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S-eKDYqpEs

  2. Di Bates

    Mole Hunt is the first book in a science fiction series set in the future and in a universe far beyond earth, a place with floating cities where people can regenerate at will and mankind is out of control, killing and maiming at will. The protagonist – and anti-hero — is teenager Maximus Black, who works for galactic law enforcement agency, RIM. He is a tightly-drawn, unlikeable psychopath trained to kill – and he does: he also commissions others to do his terrible bidding. Orphaned at the age of six when his parents are murdered, Black is so enraged by their deaths that he seeks to exact revenge: he plans to amass an enormous cache of Old Empire weapons as his way of controlling the galaxy. Black is extremely clever, able to cover his devious tracks as he progresses towards his goals.
    There are two narrative points of view in the novel, that of Black and Anneke Longshadow, both of whom are orphans, pitted against one another. Black, a mole who has infiltrated the RIM operation, has no conscience, whereas Longshadow has. Early in the book she sets out to unearth the mole, her quest made more urgent when her adoptive father, her uncle Viktus is murdered. Conflict occurs when, in a world full of spies and secret agents, the Black and Longshadow again and again work out ways to dominate one another.
    This fast-paced and bloody tale, tightly-plotted and exciting, is marketed as a young adult novel, but it is really cross-over, also ideal for adult reading. Highly recommended.

  3. Jenny Mounfield

    In a future far away—really, really far—the galaxy is a vastly different place where cities float, bodies are regenerated at will and human-kind has invented even more ways to torture and kill itself.

    Eighteen year-old Maximus Black works for galactic law enforcement agency, RIM. In short, he’s a highly-trained killing machine who makes Hannibal Lector look like Goldilocks. And like Lector, he’s a sociopathic psychopath. He is also a mole with his own agenda. At age six, Black witnessed the murder of his parents by slavers and has made it his life’s goal to exact revenge on the galaxy for the wrongs done to him. The plan: to get his hands on a massive cache of Old Empire weapons. Whoever has possession of these weapons controls the galaxy.

    Like Black. Anneke Longshadow is also an orphaned rimmer (RIM agent). Unlike Black, she has a conscience. When she learns a mole has infiltrated RIM she makes it her business to unearth him. When the mole kills her uncle, it becomes personal. What ensues is a cat and mouse chase where Black and Longshadow pit wits and muscle against each other in their quest for dominance.

    In the first book of The Maximus Black Files trilogy the first of a three-part code that will lead to the fabled Old Empire weapons is retrieved. Readers are treated to a viewpoint that alternates between Black and Longshadow and are expertly drawn into a plot that’s tighter than the traps these two characters set for each other. The pace would give Matthew Reilly a nose bleed, and the attention to technological detail is impressive to say the least: I don’t know how much fact is woven throughout the narrative, but it all has a ring of truth and that’s what counts.

    Without a doubt, Collins is a master of the SF genre. But unlike some SF authors his complex world-building hasn’t been at the expense of his characters. Though most are thoroughly loathsome, particularly Black, they are all multi-layered and compelling. My head spins at the scope of this book, which at its core is about loss and fear, good and evil—and all that falls in between. Highly recommended not just for kids 12+, but for adult readers as well.

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