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Joe Hunter #8
Rules of Honor
When Rink’s father is murdered, Joe Hunter vows to help his friend avenge his brutal death. Rink’s mother Yukiko isn’t talking, her silence governed by the Bushido tradition of giri, or moral obligation. But other people known to Yukiko are also dying, all due to a shameful secret from their past that Hunter must uncover if he hopes to end the murders. To do that rules must be broken, and Hunter doesn’t care what he must break to stop the killer.
“The action scenes are immaculately described...and even the shades of grey are murkier than ever. An excellent starting point to the dark and dangerous world of Joe Hunter.”
—crimereview.co.uk
“A rip-snorting novel which is fast paced, exciting and yet self-aware enough to address its own belief system.”
—Graham Smith, author of Snatched From Home
“...Hilton drives pace faster than The Stig...”
—crimesquad.com
“...grows at a steady pace and to be honest even though there’s more than enough action and killing to satisfy the most ardent action reader throughout the course of the book it plays second fiddle to the reason for the deaths, something I enjoyed more than any of Matt’s previous books...this for me is a more thoughtful adventure in avengement and plot building, the combination of both helps deliver a more mature action thriller.”
—milorambles.com
“Sharp and hard hitting...Matt doesn’t allow himself to get complacent, but continually delves deeper into the psyche of Joe...Fast-paced, action-filled and completely addictive, Matt shows his continuing maturity as a writer with an exhilarating ride that still maintains humour and wit.”
—www.shotsmag.co.uk
“The action scenes are immaculately described...and even the shades of grey are murkier than ever. An excellent starting point to the dark and dangerous world of Joe Hunter.”
—crimereview.co.uk
“A rip-snorting novel which is fast paced, exciting and yet self-aware enough to address its own belief system.”
—Graham Smith, author of Snatched From Home
“...Hilton drives pace faster than The Stig...”
—crimesquad.com
“...grows at a steady pace and to be honest even though there’s more than enough action and killing to satisfy the most ardent action reader throughout the course of the book it plays second fiddle to the reason for the deaths, something I enjoyed more than any of Matt’s previous books...this for me is a more thoughtful adventure in avengement and plot building, the combination of both helps deliver a more mature action thriller.”
—milorambles.com
“Sharp and hard hitting...Matt doesn’t allow himself to get complacent, but continually delves deeper into the psyche of Joe...Fast-paced, action-filled and completely addictive, Matt shows his continuing maturity as a writer with an exhilarating ride that still maintains humour and wit.”
—www.shotsmag.co.uk
296 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 14, 2013
19 people are currently reading
168 people want to read
About the author
Matt Hilton
87 books240 followersMatt Hilton worked for twenty-two years in private security and the police force in Cumbria. He is a 4th Dan blackbelt and coach in Ju-Jitsu. He lives in Cumbria with his wife and son.
Matt is the author of the best-selling Joe Hunter thriller series, as well as standalone horror thrillers and short stories that have appeared in a number of collections and anthologies. Matt's first novel - Dead Men's Dust - was a Sunday Times best-seller and was shortlisted for the ITW New Novel Award 2009.
Matt is the author of the best-selling Joe Hunter thriller series, as well as standalone horror thrillers and short stories that have appeared in a number of collections and anthologies. Matt's first novel - Dead Men's Dust - was a Sunday Times best-seller and was shortlisted for the ITW New Novel Award 2009.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 11, 2025
DNF. I LOVE MATT HILTON'S WRITING! I AM AN AVID FAN! I AM HOOKED ON HUNTER! The premise is good. So, what happened? I'm not sure, but my thoughts:
The characterizations of the players are not developed, and I didn't connect with any of them (even Joe and Rink)!
The antagonists and protagonists are muddled because the "good guys" as well as the "bad guys" are avenging prior wrongs.
There is more "telling" than "showing" and I lost interest and didn't care.
Hmmm. This particular book is a one-off. I am always enthralled with this series: staying up all night reading, inability putting it down, intriguing, heart-stopping suspense, etc. Not so with RULES OF HONOR. It certainly will not affect my love of this series, verified by my multi star reviews of Mr. Hilton's other works!
The characterizations of the players are not developed, and I didn't connect with any of them (even Joe and Rink)!
The antagonists and protagonists are muddled because the "good guys" as well as the "bad guys" are avenging prior wrongs.
There is more "telling" than "showing" and I lost interest and didn't care.
Hmmm. This particular book is a one-off. I am always enthralled with this series: staying up all night reading, inability putting it down, intriguing, heart-stopping suspense, etc. Not so with RULES OF HONOR. It certainly will not affect my love of this series, verified by my multi star reviews of Mr. Hilton's other works!
August 20, 2021
Joe Hunter is angry, so is his friend Rink. In Rules of Honour by Matt hilton Rinks father is murdered and his mother is beaten but why? It seems to be an old story going back to the second world war. Soon the pair discovers that more friends of Rinks parents are murdered but who is doing it. On their search for answers the police starts to go after Hunter and Rink and a wronged gangster is also out for blood. I really like this series but you shouldn't read them back to back.
March 10, 2014
Mmmm I have read a lot of Hilton and the 'Hunter' series and although this one does everything it should I found myself not really caring about the story or the characters and the one chance that Hilton had of addressing the whole 'vigilante' thing: the main bad guy is just like 'Hunter' out for revenge on those who murdered his father (who was a psycho but that's besides the point)...alas Hilton decides to throw away the opportunity to really get inside the mind/s of vigilantes and just settled for a rather over-long testosterone man-on-man mash-up.
I found myself reading on auto-pilot and didn't care who was left standing at the end.
Overall okay but nothing that I'll remember once I've had a few nights of sleep which is a shame really as Hilton is a gifted writer.
I found myself reading on auto-pilot and didn't care who was left standing at the end.
Overall okay but nothing that I'll remember once I've had a few nights of sleep which is a shame really as Hilton is a gifted writer.
October 29, 2013
Matt Hilton seems to have finally gone over the top. This series may have just jumped the shark.
The villain was comical, in that you'd expect him to have been ripped from the pages of a superhero comic book. The idea that the victims would all keep quiet and meekly accept their deaths, rather than band together or ask for help was just plain stupid. The constant checking in on Joe Hunter's ever-rising anger and moralizing about his penchant for violence got old quickly.
Just a great big meh.
The villain was comical, in that you'd expect him to have been ripped from the pages of a superhero comic book. The idea that the victims would all keep quiet and meekly accept their deaths, rather than band together or ask for help was just plain stupid. The constant checking in on Joe Hunter's ever-rising anger and moralizing about his penchant for violence got old quickly.
Just a great big meh.
March 3, 2013
Another amazing book by Matt Hilton
You cannot help but be grabbed by the throat and dragged along for the ride by Joe Hunter and Jared Rington
On the edge of my seat wanting to keep going with this book
Cannot recommend these books highly enough to anyone looking for a punchy pacey adventure
You cannot help but be grabbed by the throat and dragged along for the ride by Joe Hunter and Jared Rington
On the edge of my seat wanting to keep going with this book
Cannot recommend these books highly enough to anyone looking for a punchy pacey adventure
November 5, 2017
Matt Hilton is getting better as I progress through the series.
If you're just joining now, I'm reading the Joe Hunter series in sequence (and trying my best to get them all in hardback). There are currently, or soon will be, 12, and this is how far I've read so far.
Rules of Honour nicely pitches the rules of the Japanese honour code of giri, against Joe Hunter's more English rules of honour (and in-built decency) that demand blood debts be paid in blood - and in full. That is when he lets himself off the leash and as in the intro blurb up top, he 'has to stop his friend rushing headlong for vengeance' but then 'Joe doesn't care what he breaks to ensure Rink gets his revenge.' Well, clearly he does. Or doesn't. Which is it to be? That's the only thing that stops this from getting a full five. That failure to deliver on a single-minded purpose for the character. That and calling the baddie by his first name. Softened him. Suppose it was a good job his name wasn't 'Nigel,' though, eh?
But aside from that...it's stripped-down Hunter, it's more direct, it's more purposeful and builds of the heights of expectation I had from the previous outing. The involvement of the 'prisoner of war' camps the USA put a lot of its Japanese citizens in, was known to me, I think I read a book years ago, based on that internment, but even three years ahead of the shaved baboon's regime, it's a timely reminder of the idiocy in charge of the USA psyche right now. That's in part Joe Hunter's job here - and previously too - to bring a common sense to the Americans' excesses. If Rink was thinking properly at the start, he'd have known that shooting the perp early on wouldn't be the right thing, no matter how, and maybe because of how, irritating it was at the time of reading. But irritation can only come when you care about something, right or wrong? So if I'm caring about the book and the characters, that's Matt done his job? I think so.
It's fair enough that Hodder & Stoughton decided to market the series as 'like Jack Reacher,' that's a no-brainer. Others, here in Europe, have done it as well. And maybe a little more blatantly. I think the problem with the comparison is that Matt Hilton has decided to write the stories from Joe Hunter's point of view. In the 'first person,' is it? All bar two (?) of the Reacher books, are in the third person. So, Reacher can continually "say nothing" and appear all enigmatic and decisive, rather than saying nothing and us reading all the machinations of his weighing the pros and cons and appearing like a little old lady. It allows us to be Reacher in any given situation, Reacher is clearly thinking what we hope we would. "Kill the fucker!" for example. Pick the bones out of it later. Mainly Lee Child has established the motives, the right intentions of the character earlier, and doesn't need to keep repeating it for latecomers. We know the motives, we know he will do what is right for the situation, we don't need it wrapping with a pink ribbon each time.
What Matt Hilton is doing right I guess, is writing the character his own way, playing by his rules for Hunter. Maybe it's me who needs to forget Reacher while reading. So no more stickers on my books, please.
The best book blog on the block: Speesh Reads
And on Facebook: Speesh Reads
If you're just joining now, I'm reading the Joe Hunter series in sequence (and trying my best to get them all in hardback). There are currently, or soon will be, 12, and this is how far I've read so far.
Rules of Honour nicely pitches the rules of the Japanese honour code of giri, against Joe Hunter's more English rules of honour (and in-built decency) that demand blood debts be paid in blood - and in full. That is when he lets himself off the leash and as in the intro blurb up top, he 'has to stop his friend rushing headlong for vengeance' but then 'Joe doesn't care what he breaks to ensure Rink gets his revenge.' Well, clearly he does. Or doesn't. Which is it to be? That's the only thing that stops this from getting a full five. That failure to deliver on a single-minded purpose for the character. That and calling the baddie by his first name. Softened him. Suppose it was a good job his name wasn't 'Nigel,' though, eh?
But aside from that...it's stripped-down Hunter, it's more direct, it's more purposeful and builds of the heights of expectation I had from the previous outing. The involvement of the 'prisoner of war' camps the USA put a lot of its Japanese citizens in, was known to me, I think I read a book years ago, based on that internment, but even three years ahead of the shaved baboon's regime, it's a timely reminder of the idiocy in charge of the USA psyche right now. That's in part Joe Hunter's job here - and previously too - to bring a common sense to the Americans' excesses. If Rink was thinking properly at the start, he'd have known that shooting the perp early on wouldn't be the right thing, no matter how, and maybe because of how, irritating it was at the time of reading. But irritation can only come when you care about something, right or wrong? So if I'm caring about the book and the characters, that's Matt done his job? I think so.
It's fair enough that Hodder & Stoughton decided to market the series as 'like Jack Reacher,' that's a no-brainer. Others, here in Europe, have done it as well. And maybe a little more blatantly. I think the problem with the comparison is that Matt Hilton has decided to write the stories from Joe Hunter's point of view. In the 'first person,' is it? All bar two (?) of the Reacher books, are in the third person. So, Reacher can continually "say nothing" and appear all enigmatic and decisive, rather than saying nothing and us reading all the machinations of his weighing the pros and cons and appearing like a little old lady. It allows us to be Reacher in any given situation, Reacher is clearly thinking what we hope we would. "Kill the fucker!" for example. Pick the bones out of it later. Mainly Lee Child has established the motives, the right intentions of the character earlier, and doesn't need to keep repeating it for latecomers. We know the motives, we know he will do what is right for the situation, we don't need it wrapping with a pink ribbon each time.
What Matt Hilton is doing right I guess, is writing the character his own way, playing by his rules for Hunter. Maybe it's me who needs to forget Reacher while reading. So no more stickers on my books, please.
The best book blog on the block: Speesh Reads
And on Facebook: Speesh Reads
October 15, 2020
Massive Joe Hunter fan but this was not the best piece of work, As many other reviews on Goodreads have pointed out I just didn't connect with this one.
It does exactly what it says on the tin and you know what to get from a Hunter book but this just felt labored as if Matt Hilton had to write a book because he was on a deadline.
The plot is clunky the action set pieces seem far to wooden, Joe And Rink didn't connect with me and the villain was just poorly written and I never felt he was a threat to our heroes.
The good guys were as bad as the bad guys as they were both hell bent on revenge at any cost and two wrongs do not make a right it felt very muddled.
Even the final showdown I felt seemed rushed to me.
With 8 books down lets hope this is just a miss step on the part of Hilton.
Only worth your time and money if you are a fan of the series if not I would give this a miss.
It does exactly what it says on the tin and you know what to get from a Hunter book but this just felt labored as if Matt Hilton had to write a book because he was on a deadline.
The plot is clunky the action set pieces seem far to wooden, Joe And Rink didn't connect with me and the villain was just poorly written and I never felt he was a threat to our heroes.
The good guys were as bad as the bad guys as they were both hell bent on revenge at any cost and two wrongs do not make a right it felt very muddled.
Even the final showdown I felt seemed rushed to me.
With 8 books down lets hope this is just a miss step on the part of Hilton.
Only worth your time and money if you are a fan of the series if not I would give this a miss.
March 15, 2020
Actually 3 1/2 stars for me, not as stimulating and exciting as previous stories, with two groups righting wrongs against each other, but I still enjoyed it. It felt as if Matt was in a siesta between his previous book and the one after this, lets hope number 9 gives us his usual thrill.
July 3, 2017
Gave up 7 chapters in. Wasn't gripped at all and was forcing each sentence.
October 24, 2020
Not bad. Charity shop purchase and happy to give it back. Nice plot and the characters built to be pretty tough but the book was billed as Jack Teacher alternative. He’s not Reacher.
February 20, 2024
A fast pace book that makes you want to keep turning the pages
Read
October 19, 2013having read this series I was really looking forward to this novel. I am very lucky that my copy was signed by Matt himself. This book brings all the gang back, Rink was under used in the previous novel . The story itself is good and the hero, Hunter is as dynamic as ever . It beings in Giri a Japanese term for honour and keeping a secret. The story encompasses America during Ww2 and the early 70s. Bringing us up to date with Rinks father being murdered. The book moves along at breakneck pace with a great villain. you can read the series out of sequence but I recommend doing it sequence
July 17, 2014
yet again matt hilton has amazed me with his clever style of writing alot of writers at the stage of 8 books in with same lead character may run out of steam but not joe hunter and my personal favourite rink thoroughly enjoyed it and cant wait to purchase the next installment long live joe hunter.
March 31, 2016
Another good Hunter/Rink story.
Somewhere in the series i felt like i'd lost touch with the characters but this did redeem it.
Enjoyed this one more than the last couple.
Somewhere in the series i felt like i'd lost touch with the characters but this did redeem it.
Enjoyed this one more than the last couple.
September 18, 2013
Not as good as his previous works, but still a good read
April 19, 2013
Matt Hilton just gets better and better with every Joe Hunter book.
No spoilers here but I can tell you that this is one of the BEST books I have EVER read
5*****
No spoilers here but I can tell you that this is one of the BEST books I have EVER read
5*****
June 18, 2013
This was a great book with various twists and turns. Well written as always and deals with a sensitive story line well. I would always want this pair on my side
February 14, 2015
Bit different to other Joe Hunter books. Great read, did Joe survive? not telling you will have to read yourselves.
March 24, 2014
My kind of book, fast and furious with plenty of action.
July 28, 2015
Not my idea of entertainment, literature or a good story but as a genre to discuss at a bookgroup I could probably have done worse (sadly)
July 2, 2016
Have you ever read series of books that you think the hero has run it's course, well this one such a case. Joe Hunter RIP
September 18, 2016
Another great Joe Hunter novel
A great fast paced action thriller from Matt Hilton. A well thought out plot and nasty villain make a very satisfying read.
A great fast paced action thriller from Matt Hilton. A well thought out plot and nasty villain make a very satisfying read.
March 26, 2017
Hope there are more of this series.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews