Time to Hunt (Bob Lee Swagger) - Softcover

Hunter, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440226457 ISBN 13: 9780440226451

Publisher: Island Books, 1999

Synopsis

“Stephen Hunter is in a class by himself.  Time to Hunt is as vivid and haunting as a moving target in the crosshairs of a sniper scope.”—Nelson Demille, author of Mayday

He is the most dangerous man alive.  He only wants to live in peace with his family, and forget the war that nearly killed him. . . .

It's not going to happen.

Stephen Hunter's epic national bestsellers, Point of Impact and Black Light, introduced millions of readers to Bob Lee Swagger, called “Bob the Nailer,” a heroic but flawed Vietnam War veteran forced twice to use his skills as a master sniper to defend his life and his honor.  Now, in his grandest, most intensely thrilling adventure yet, Bob the Nailer must face his deadliest foe from Vietnam—and his own demons—to save his wife and daughter.

During the latter days of the Vietnam War, deep in-country, a young idealistic Marine named Donny Fenn was cut down by a sniper's bullet as he set out on patrol with Swagger, who himself received a grievous wound.  Years later Swagger married Donny's widow, Julie, and together they raise their daughter, Nikki, on a ranch in the isolated Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho.  Although he struggles with the painful legacy of Vietnam, Swagger's greatest wish—to leave his violent past behind and live quietly with his family—seems to have come true.

Then one idyllic day, a man, a woman, and a girl set out from the ranch on horseback.  High on a ridge above a mountain pass, a thousand yards distant, a calm, cold-eyed shooter, one of the world's greatest marksmen, peers through a telescopic sight at the three approaching figures.

Out of his tortured past, a mortal enemy has once again found Bob the Nailer.  Time to Hunt proves anew why so many consider Stephen Hunter to be our best living thriller writer.  With a plot that sweeps from the killing fields of Vietnam to the corridors of power in Washington to the shadowy plots of the new world order, Hunter delivers all the complex, stay-up-all-night action his fans demand in a masterful tale of family heartbreak and international intrigue—and shows why, for Bob Lee Swagger, it's once again time to hunt.

Praise for Time to Hunt

“Stephen Hunter is simply the best writer of action fiction in the world and Time to Hunt proves it.”—Phillip Margolin, author of The Burning Man

“The best straight-up thriller writer at work today.”—Rocky Mountain News

About this title

Review:

After a literally explosive opening where sniper fire cuts through the chest of an unnamed victim (Swagger?), readers of Time to Hunt are plunged into the final years of the Vietnam War and the struggles of Marine Donny Fenn. Stationed in Washington, D.C., after recovering from a nearly mortal wound, Fenn is asked to spy on Marines who may have ties to the peace movement. What Donny quickly learns, however, is that his Navy superiors are more interested in framing somebody than they are in finding the truth. In this first section, readers waiting to discover the outcome of the assassination and glimpse Bob "The Nailer" Swagger will instead be swept away by Hunter's vivid painting of the divided loyalties and torn identities that plagued soldiers and citizens in the early 1970s.

But all of this action is only a prelude to Donny's subsequent relationship with Swagger in Vietnam. Hunter fleshes out the mythology that he began to create in Point of Impact as readers watch Swagger add to his famed body count and confront his nemesis, Solaratov. Hunter moves deftly from the mind of Solaratov to Donny and back to Swagger, and in each character finds the core of the Vietnam experience--fear, coldness, sadness, horror, elation.

The last two sections cut to contemporary events and find Swagger married to Donny's former love, Julie. Slowly, the events of the first half of the book begin to merge with Swagger's present history and stories that readers will recognize from Hunter's earlier novels. Swagger uncovers a deep connection between the Vietnam demonstrations of the 1970s, the predatory work of the CIA, and the killer who is after him and his family now. Nothing is as it first seems, and readers of Point of Impact and Black Light will have to revise all their expectations. --Patrick O'Kelley

From the Publisher:

"Stephen Hunter is in a class by himself. Time to Hunt is as vivid and haunting as a moving target in the crosshairs of a sniper scope."
--Nelson Demille, author of Mayday

"Stephen Hunter is simply the best writer of action fiction in the world and Time to Hunt proves it."
--Phillip Margolin, author of The Burning Man

"The best straight-up thriller writer at work today."
--Rocky Mountain News

"Thrilling in the manner of ancient storytellers, with battles fierce enough for a war and characters crazy enough to fight them to the death."
--New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Island Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0440226457
• ISBN 13: 9780440226451
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 608