Rating: 
Summary: Holds your attention from start to finish.
Review: "Dirty White Boys" was my initial Stephen Hunter read. I then went back and started chronologically. By the time I got to "Point of Impact" I trusted Mr. Hunter. Therefore I did not get distressed with the arcane and detailed info on rifles, ballistics, shooting etc. that began "Point of Impact". I was rewarded with a wonderfully rich character in Bob Lee Swagger. "Time to Hunt" completes the Swagger trilogy. Again, rich characters whose flaws make them oh so real and compassionate. It is a thriller of the nth degree. As in the previous Swagger stories the true villan is in doubt until the final pages. Then you have to go back and reread the last half dozen or so pages, just to make certain you read it correctly. Mr. Hunter writes with conviction and makes you find time to drop what you should be doing and get back to his book
Rating:
Summary: Another great Bob Lee Swagger story
Review: This one has everything: a look into the past of Donny Fenn, who was wounded in 'Nam, returned to CLUSA and assigned to Eighth and I in Washington, D.C., for funeral ceremonies and riot control duty (controlling peaceniks on the rampage); Donny and Bob Lee on sniper duty when he (Donny) is sent back for another tour, as Bob Lee's spotter, and the results are great adventure; and then we are brought up to date with the current adventure with the past in the background to give it context.
There are actually at least two stories here, that overlap and are connected. The plotting is superb and complex, as is usual for Stephen Hunter. Also as usual, the research effort shows in the final product. One of Hunter's strong points is his encyclopedic knowledge of modern firearms and ballistics, all very accurate--unusual in a novelist, most of whom don't know the receiver of a rifle from the butt plate.
Hunter is also wonderful at breathing life into his characters. One female critic complained because his protagonist, Bob Lee Swagger, always comes out on top. But, how would SHE write the story? Have the author kill his hero in the first chapter, thereby reducing a 600 page novel to a 50 page short story?
Critics!
This is a writer who knows how to tell an adventure story, keeping his audience in suspense all the way, and making a satisfactory ending. The kind I like.
I've ordered four more of his other titles.
Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret)
author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books!
Review: In the prolog of this book, there is a very startling development. Bob Lee Swagger is shot in the chest by a sniper while out horseback riding with his wife and daughter. The reader is drawn into the following story, eager to discover what led to this devastating outcome. The story centers on the war in Vietnam and the peace demonstrations in Washington DC. Then the scene shifts to Washington DC and the post-war political intrigue. Bob Lee Swagger is looking for answers while his life is being threatened. There are several twists and surprises in this story. Just when the reader thinks he has it all figured out, the story takes a whole new direction. Things aren't settled until the very last page. A lot of edge-of-your-seat suspense and well-plotted action. Never a dull moment.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Action Story
Review: Donny Fenn, an all-American boy and Marine with a Bronze Star, is coerced by the Navy snoops to spy on Eddie Crowe in the spring of '71. Eddie, a priviledged PFC in Donny's "body squad", hands out with charismatic Trig Carter and a bunch of Peaceniks with suspected ties to the Weather Underground. When Donny refuses to testify against him, the dirtball snoop sends him back to the Land of Bad Things where Bob Lee (Bob the Nailer) Swagger, lifer on his third tour, recruits him to be his spotter.They're a sniper team working out of "Dodge City", and in a great action sequence they hold off a North Vietnamese battalion that's about to overrun a stranded unit in the battle of AnLoc. Just as he makes the reader sympathetic to the anti-war side in the beginning, Hunter can also make you embrace the napalm attack that allows the Hueys to rescue Bob Lee and Donny from almost certain death. On his last day in Nam and on a mission he was not supposed to go on, Donny is killed by the Russian sniper Solaratov. Bob Lee married Donny's widow Julie in the 90s, overcame a battle with booze and now lives with Julie and their daughter on a ranch in Arizona. More than a quarter century later Solaratov comes after them there. Bob Lee finds Bonson, the Navy snoop who sent Donny back to Nam, now Deputy Director of the CIA. He presses him for the Russian connection and also figures that Trig Carter was murdered, but by whom and why? When Bob lee finally puts all the pieces together, there's some great action including a HALO into the Idaho mountains and a trek though snow in the dark to save his family. This is right up there with "Point of Impact" as one of Hunter's best. If you like audiobooks, Beau Bridges is a great Bob the Nailer.
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