Having seen the movie first I was quickly surprised by its deviation from the book. While the general plot twists were held in place, it was still a page turner from front to back. While Swagger's omniscience made for excellent plot twists, it felt over done. His seeming inability to do anything wrong made the outcome of the story known from early on; the details simply needed to be filled in. Despite the inevitable outcome it is still worth picking up, and makes for an excellent action thriller. ( )

This was a fun read and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a typical techno-thriller. On the positive side, the book moves quickly, with lots of twists and turns to the plot, the action is fairly relentless, and the view into the technical side of the sniper profession is very interesting.

On the negative side, the hero is just a bit too much of a superman. This isn't in reference to his shooting ability—there are documented cases of Viet Nam and Middle East snipers doing the same things. No, Swagger's superpowers were in his ability to completely predict everything his adversaries were going to do, right down to the second. It disturbed the flow of the book at times. It wasn't unduly unsettling; I just tend to prefer my characters to be slightly more believable.

I had seen the movie based upon this book..."Shooter"...before reading the novel and, even though I knew some of the plot twists, I still enjoyed it enough to read it in a single sitting. Give it a try if you like the genre.

As a side note, reading reviews of the sequel, The 47th Samurai, I understand that Swagger's superabilities extend to becoming a world-class master of the samurai sword with about a week's practice, so I think I'll just stop here. Those kinds of things should be left for Dirk Pitt or other protagonists whose authors have their tongues firmly in their cheeks. ( )

Vietnam-vet and Master sniper Bob Lee gets pulled into one last job. It’s a set-up and all of a sudden he is the most hunted man in the US of A. And now he is pissed off and out for revenge. Great read, I could not put it down and was comatose all week, because I kept reading till 2am a couple of nights in a row. If you like Tom Clancy, try this! It is fast, has a lot of suspense, doesn’t take itself too serious and is fun to read. ( )