Rating: 
Summary: 4 1/2 stars
Review: See storyline above.Stephen Hunter brings Earl Swagger back after his Hot Springs adventure. If you think Swagger had a tough time in Hot Springs, wait till you get a load of this story.
This time around Swagger is called on to help his friend Sam Vincent, an ex-prosecutor from Arkansas, who is being held captive at a secret Prison farm in Thebes, Arkansas. Thebes Prison Farm is run by ruthless men in the swamps of Mississippi. A subplot includes the investigation of a secret Army research project that ties in with the Farm. Filled with surprises and evil twists, this violent and sometimes cruel look at life on the Farm, will make you race to the end of the story where you know justice will prevail. The gettin' even part will make you cheer. Hunter fans will love this one. A Well plotted and well told thriller taking place in the racial turmoil of Mississippi in the 1950's. Highly recommended
Rating: 
Summary: One of his best...
Review: I have just finished Pale Horse Coming and have to say that it is very rare that I find a book that makes me want to call in sick so that I can stay in bed and read. I was right after my initial reaction...Hunter is back where he should be. He is the master of retribution...keeps you thinking and on the edge...I love a good gun fight.
Rating:
Summary: Pale Horse: Hunter has done it again.
Review: Mr. Hunter has done it again. This book gets going quick and doesn't let up. It will leave you breathless. One of the best follow-ups I have ever read. The only regret I have is it will be another year until his next book.
Rating:
Summary: Hunter is back Where he Belongs
Review: I am only halfway through Pale Horse Coming, but can barely put it down to sleep. Hunter has rediscovered the grit and intensity that made Dirty White Boys his best by far. Time to Hunt was a let down and Hot Springs only teased my Hunter worship, but this novel, unless it takes some horrible turns, is exactly what hooked me when I first was introduced to his work. He has created such evil that I find myself wanted to do some damage and can barely contain my desire for Earl to kick some tail. Intriguing, violent, suspenseful and intelligent...this hopefully will go down as one of his best!
Rating:
Summary: Hunter Does it Again
Review: I am a huge fan of Stephen Hunter's novels and this one was not a disappointment. Once again, he involves Earl Swagger and Sam Vincent in an exciting (though admittedly somewhat far-fetched)tale of evil and retribution. With countless allusions to plays and movies of the past, Hunter has crafted what is becoming increasingly rare these days - an engrossing, involving story that is hard to put down yet is very well-written. Far too many of today's popular fiction writers simply aren't particularly good at their craft; they are more interested in getting the next best-seller out there because they know that their names alone will guarantee a few weeks on the charts. Hunter has never gotten the readership he deserves, which is unfortunate, since he is a far better writer than many of the more popular authors (James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell come readily to mind). In "Pale Horse Coming," Hunter takes us into the heart of Mississippi, both geographically and racially, creating a story of courage and commitment. Is it totally believable? No, but the characters he has created and the milieu he establishes ring true and he makes the story fun; the dialogue is clever and honestly reflects the time (early 50s), the action is swift, and, best of all, he has created central characters that you like and pull for. For a time, in earlier novels, Hunter seemed to focus on Earl's son, Bob Lee Swagger, but he has apparently discovered that Earl is the more interesting protagonist and, as he did in "Hot Springs," he has put him in the middle of a truly interesting story. This is a terrific book that I hope does make the best-seller lists; discovering Hunter would be a wonderful experience for any lover of good fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely fabulous
Review: By 1951 Thebes, Mississippi is a ghost town converted to a penal colony for Negro criminals. Once in you never leave as the only egress is by boat in a casket. The warden and guards run a tight operation making life miserable for the prisoners because the standard operating norm is whipping and torture. The men in charge use all sorts of diabolical devices to keep the prisoners in line and cowed.
Attorney Sam Vincent travels to Thebes to meet a client, but is illegally detained by the law enforcement officials running the facility. Earl Swagger knows Sam is inside Thebes and sets out to free his friend. Earl frees Sam, but is caught instead. Big Boy, who runs the prison, periodically tortures Earl, who with a bit of luck escapes vowing to return to burn this little corner of hell to the ground.
PALE HORSE COMING is a juicy thriller that shows how little freedom blacks had in the 1951 south. The novel shocks, excites, and enthralls the audience. The plot serves as a testament to the unknown heroes fighting injustice to make things right for everyone. Stephen Hunter is a fantastic writer who knows how to entertain and educate his fans. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Earl Swaggart is back and nastier than ever
Review: I do not want to spoil the book for anyone but Earl is back and better and nastier than ever. He helps his buddy Sam Vincent out of a jam and get's himself in a big one himself.
I think this is one of Hunter's best works, I could not put it down. I started reading it on Wednesday after dinner and finished it on Saturday. It was filled with suspense, terror, a good old fashioned gun fight and honor. I had a hard time putting the book down each night before bed, it was that good.
While some of the big names in suspense novels with their own heroes have seemed to loose the concept of making a good story, Hunter still excells. The writing is well thought out, descriptions of the landscape real, and the people believable, even if he borrows from real life. He makes his books live and that is why they are so entertaining. Others I am sorry to say have forgotten to develop people, dialog and scenes. I wish I had his skill to write.
I heartily recommend this book for the Earl Swaggart, Bobby the Nailer Swaggart fans, you will not be disapointed.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Book But Not Nearly Hunter's Best!
Review: If this is your first book by Stephen Hunter you'd probably give this book four stars, possibly more. However, having read Point Of Impact, Dirty White Boys, Time To Hunt, Hot Springs etc., Hunter's latest effort doesn't quite measure up. The first half of Pale Horse Coming was in typical Hunter fashion -- action upon action, details about guns, a Swaggert being larger than life. I couldn't put the book down! The second half, however, dragged in too many areas and the action slowed down considerably. Further, many of the events that occurred were somewhat predictable. Overall, Pale Horse Rising is a book I think you'll like -- you just won't love it -- an emotion that true Hunter fans have come to expect (demand?) from his books!
Rating:
Summary: Hunter's best
Review: If you've read Hunter before you'll recognize his archetypes: sergeants, bold, strong and taciturn, yakky old southern or western gunfighters, pretty young women, dastardly villains who deserve the whacking they get and how. And that's Hunter: cliches executed with such bravado they transcend their own triteness. In this one, our hero Earl Swagger is on a mission from God: he's encountered a place on earth that should be in hell, a viciously racist southern prison farm for black men, where oppression is the style of the day. And so Earl, surviving but just barely, goes to town: he recruites a magnificent seven or a seven samurai and goes to war.
Hunter is both playful and sadistic in this one. His vision of the prison, with its ordeals of torture and oppression, its sense of crushing doom, is quite convincing. At the same time, he's having fun evoking movies (from Kurosawa, Sturges and Peckinpah) and literary sources (from Aeschylus to Faulkner, with Conrad and Freddie Forsythe thrown in for good measure), and part of the fun is catching his allusions.
But the end result is extremely poweful narrative magic: you cannot put this sucker down until the end, and if you look, you'll see that it's 5 a.m., you have an 8 a.m. appointment, and you won't care.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent southern dialect and recreation of hard times
Review: Earl Swagger's a tough guy, no doubt about it. He's also a man of integrity. His closest friend, Sam Vincent, also is a man of integrity. But it's a different kind of integrity. Not a different shade or a different color. Just an integrity based on a different set of rules. There's a gritty scene in the movie "The Untouchables" where Sean Connery corners Kevin Costner, the idealistic Federal Cop who wants to get the mob, and Connery asks him, "how far are you willing to go?" And that really is the difference between Vincent and Swagger. Vincent wants retribution, but he wants to do it legally. Swagger, the Congressional Medal of Honor winner from only six years before, wants to right horrid, terrible wrongs, but he's willing to do 'whatever it takes.' Sam Vincent is on assignment for a 'Chicago Lawyer' when he's taken custody in the Thebes Mississippi Penal Farm, a backwater penitentiary built for African American inmates convicted of violent felonies. The dialogue used by the guards as well as Vincent and Swagger seems to be right out of the 50's and what I imagine it would sound like in rural, swampwater, bayou Mississippi. Vincent gets caught investigating the Penal Farm and tossed in the lockup. Earl Swagger goes down to rescue him, and in the rescue he saves Vincent but gets caught. Beaten, whipped, crushed, nearly drowned, he escapes and goes back to right the wrongs he witnessed, suspected and were perpetrated upon him. A little light on plot going from the possibly believable to the "I can't believe this part" however government conspiracy, mad Doctor and the crazed warden nevertheless, an exciting book. Good dialogue. Like all Hunter novels, pretty heavy on the violence. My favorite Hunter still remains "Dirty White Boys," however the Swagger series, father and son, are top shelf reading excitement. 4 stars. Larry Scantlebury
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