Yes, it's a prequel novel to the Predator movie that came out in 2018. The one I watched part of in a hotel room, unaware a tornado was destroying my apartment. Look, the book was $3, it would have to be pretty bad to not be worth that.
It's not actually that bad. Basically, a Predator comes to Earth. The U.S. military and CIA are aware of the fact these things exist, and when they get wind of this one running around in north Florida, they send the 8-man team they've been training for this to capture it. Which they do, surprisingly quickly. The book is about 300 pages, and they catch it by page 130.
Of course, it doesn't stay caught, because there are people within the project with motives of their own. Like letting it escape with a tracking device on it, so it'll lead them to its ship. Gotta love how people understand it's an alien from a species vastly more advanced than us, but they treat it like a dumb animal. Moore spends a fair amount of pages on the jockeying for power behind the scenes. The bland schemer in the suit angling to take control from a general and a guy who survived encountering a Predator in Vietnam. That stuff would seem more important if I re-watched the movie; here, it's just a lot of talking going on while the Predator kills a bunch of people.
Moore also spends time narrating from the Predator's perspective. The process behind its thoughts. That if it causes a little carnage and then waits, it might get better prey. Its weaknesses, its particular brand of honor. There's a few things in there about the alien's species undergoing dramatic changes and them not being sure why that, again, feels like something paid off in the movie. Doesn't ring a bell, but I could have missed it.
One thing that's interesting to me is the novel explicitly references Predator 2 more than once. One of the researchers in the project is even the son of Gary Busey's character. But the first movie is at best, vaguely alluded to. Which seems strange. Dutch and his crew were American soldiers, on an (unwitting) job for the CIA. Wouldn't Dutch, who was in command of his own elite fighting unit, be someone they would absolutely debrief?
'The next report to the general resulted in a furious demand for action. So the next day, all of the remaining agents went hunting. They did it together, thinking there would be safety in numbers.
Remembering made Pappy desperate for a drink.'
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