Stephen Hunter (1) (1946–)

I was intrigued after watching the (lame) film Shooter, which is based on this book, to see just how badly Hollywood screwed it up. My hunch was that the damage was extensive as the film was poorly done, but the story idea was a good one. Knowing Stephen Hunter is a damn fine writer I figured I had nothing to loose. My hunch was correct, Point of Impact is a taut thriller with great characters and deeply researched back up information to move the story along. In short, read the book; skip show more the movie. show less

I'm a huge fan of the author's "Swagger" books. I've enjoyed them all. In this latest effort, Hunter has included all three of the Swagger men, Charles, Earl, and Bob Lee. A story about each of them. Yet pulling all three stories together so they are interconnected through time. I am left amazed at the talent Hunter has. Not content with simply building on the same tried and true formulas, this time he branches out and writes in a different style for each story.
The first story, featuring show more Charles, is a throwback to the 1930's genre of the "message picture". What he calls clever, quick-thinking pulse-readers. Showing the common man in his struggles, trying to overcome the system. He does this well. It reads like an old movie, showing the dirt, grit, determination, and violence many faced. It's great!
The second story, featuring Earl, utilizes the American "film noir" technique of the 1940's. With it's cynical attitudes and motivations. I think this was my favorite of the three.
The third story, featuring Bob Lee, was written in a style that I was completely unfamiliar with. Hunter calls it "Giallo" the genre of bloody Italian mystery-horror films of the seventies. And wow, did he ever! Perhaps this one is the horror we've never experienced in a Swagger novel. Bloody, gritty, raw. Psycho. Wanted to take a shower after reading it. But, it's also great.
I can't imagine how the author keeps coming up with new angles. His mind must never sleep. I hope he can continue it for many more years! show less

The world of the 1930s gangsters, of Elliot Ness and the Untouchables, of the automatic weapons that both sides used (and which were not outlawed until later in the decade), of the federal investigators and G-men that hunted the Dillingers and Bonnie and Clydes, et al, has a considerable aura of romance and adventure to it. The outlaw and the lawman hunting him has become a familiar film trope going all the way back to Edward G Robinson and James Cagney. This very enjoyable novel is a great show more piece of historical fiction, and plays on that never-ending interest. The character of Charles Swagger is the mysterious and hidden hero, the upright Sheriff whose forthrightness and stolid righteousness for the cause of Justice makes him larger-than-life at the same time that his place in history has been mysteriously erased. If you're at all an aficionado or lover of that shoot-em-up era, or if you like a good story about a good man trying to catch the bad guys, Stephen Hunter has added a great addition to this genre, and you will greatly enjoy this book. Hunter has managed to give us a great hero, a rollicking story, a suspenseful long chase, and some great realistic and true-to-history crime scenes as well. And if you like guns at all, this is the book for you.

The story starts out in the present, when land developers find a strongbox on Bob Swagger's land that holds a thousand-dollar bill and a Government issue handgun, as well as an unidentified piece of hardware. The mystery of why Bob's grandfather, Sheriff Charles Swagger, would have these items, and why he might have hidden them to begin with, as well as the mystery of what appears to be an "X marks the spot" map in an unknown location, starts Bob on a search to uncover his grandfather's past and possible relationship with what later became known as the FBI, but at the time was known as "The Division," the bureau responsible for hunting down the gangsters known as "public enemies" such as John Dillinger and "Baby Face Nelson," aka Lester Gillis.

In an effort to stop these thugs, the Division apparently enrolled the help of Bob's grandfather, at the time a small-town sheriff who had seen his share of action and heroism in WWI. Charles becomes a great asset to the Division because of his expertise at shooting, his level-headedness, and his deep desire for justice.

The story alternates between the past and the present, the latter of which also has its share of suspense and drama, as Bob's search for the truth and to uncover the past attracts some unwanted notice from the underworld, who have a stake in what Bob may uncover. The pacing is superb here, with the parallel hunts gaining momentum simultaneously in their different time periods: as the historical story unfolds more quickly towards the end, so does Bob's story come to a head.

This is a long book, but I think wonderfully structured. Like Charles himself, the stories start out slow and deliberate, then slowly gain traction and momentum and finally come to a head We're given some background, some exposition, and a lot of information about guns. Boy, if you're an old gun buff, this is the book for you. There is a lot of detail of old guns, how they were cared for, why they were made, the materials used to store them -- I mean, everything. I suppose that a huge part of the mythos of this time period centered on them, especially the automatic rat-a-tat weapons of story and film, and Hunter really gives these guns their due.

This was my first "G-Man" book, and I was very pleasantly surprised that I lost nothing on coming in cold. So many other book series presume foreknowledge on the reader's part, and I'm happy to say, this is a stand-alone book.

Quiet and conflicted, Charles Swagger is a great hero. He still has nightmares from the Great War, but doesn't complain about them. He knows right from wrong, and does his best to act accordingly. He's smart as a pistol and uses those smarts to outwit and outshoot the gangsters. His demons could persuade anyone to quit, but he takes them in stride, quietly, like a hero should, and doesn't let them beat him down. He knows how to handle a gun, and when to use it. In short, Charles is the great hero of his time. Why his name has been stricken from the history books is the great mystery of the story, and keeps the reader interested.

The chapters that tell the story from the gangsters' points of view are equally enthralling. The true story of these public enemies is not their daring plans of mayhem and destruction, but in how they saw the world, their arrogance and narcissism, their view of themselves as the righteous ones and everyone else as the enemies, and also, the women in their lives and why they were so willing to give themselves away to these monsters.

I found the description and dialogue of the '30s accurate -- at least, it rang true. The author has clearly done his homework on historically accurate details of places, clothing, cars, culture. etc.

All in all this is a fast-paced read and great historical fiction.

Thank you to the author and publisher for a review copy. show less

Stephen Hunter's "Soft Target" is a major disappointment that reads like a novelization of a superficial action film that includes sideline commentary on the state of America's politicians and lawyers. These latter elements make the book more of a satire than the type of action thriller that we have come to expect from Hunter. Yes, I know that characters like Howard "Howdy Duty" Utey from the Swagger series were also meant to personify the bureaucratic mindset in opposition to action men show more such as Bob Lee Swagger and Nick Memphis, but Colonel Douglas Obobo is an embarrassing right wing-nut/Tea Party inspired projection of, you guessed it, Barack Obama, as self-seeking bureaucrat personified. The hero this time is Ray Cruz who first appeared in Hunter's last book "Dead Zero". Journalist Nikki Swagger makes a cameo appearance and the iconic Bob Lee Swagger only appears via a brief recorded phone message. The villains are a pretty lame cardboard bunch of Somali Islamists some of whom who were coerced into joining the fight and they are led by, get this, a first-person-shooter video game obsessed American turncoat looking to direct and immortalize his own apocalyptic shoot-out. It all goes down in a Mall of America inspired location. Either Hunter has lost interest in writing the sort of thriller fiction that made for a solid core of fans from 1993's "Point of Impact" onwards or, like Tom Clancy, he has stopped writing his own books. I can't imagine that any long-term fans will find much to enjoy in this latest outing. show less