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Summary: "It Don't Shoot"
Review: The greatest line in the book was "It Don't Shoot." For the sake of not spoiling things, I will not explain what that line means but you wlll have to read it toward the end.
This is my first Hunter novel and I was absolutely dumbfounded after reading it. Swagger is a very complex character who has a lot of ghosts from Viet Nam that still haunt him, especially the memory of his best friend getting killed by enemy fire. Swagger is one of the best snipers in the business and he is cajoled by a rogue group of secret government operatives into involving himself in an assassination plot. After the rogue operatives fail to kill him, he becomes a fugitive from justice and has to team up with a disgraced FBI agent to clear his name. Very tense thriller involving government coverups, trickery and constant grandstanding by the Asst Director of the FBI.
I could not put this one down. Hunter scores big with this one.
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Summary: If you are considering this, you have good taste in books.
Review: Not going to bore you with long review. It's a great read.... Why is it a great read you ask? Well... when you mix an Arkansas Vietnam Sniper Vet with a powerful and deadly rifle against uniformed thugs with serious issues... you got a winner. This book certainly is one.
This author, Stephen Hunter, is sooooooo good at writing about shooting that he will make you feel the actual trigger pull on your finger when reading this book.
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Summary: Well inside a minute of angle
Review: Gunnery Sergeant Bob Lee Swagger was a Marine Corps sniper in Vietnam, who had killed eighty-seven of the enemy (confirmed). Almost as many as the real-life Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, who had 93 confirmed kills. Both men used a Remington model 700 bolt-action rifle.
Sergeant Swagger was severely wounded, and his spotter killed, by an enemy sniper. His wounds resulted in his disability retirement, and eventual permanent retirement from the Marine Corps. The bad guys in this book, working on contract for a central American regime, seek to assassinate an influential cleric whose politics are antithetical to their own, when the President of the United States is due to honor him with a decoration in New Orleans.
Swagger is not aware of the actual plot, and when they tell him that the president is the subject of an assassination attempt, and want him to tell them where the assassin is most likely to strike, pretending to be CIA, he goes along. Little does he know that he is being set up to be the "fall guy," and that the president is not the real target.
This is a well-plotted thriller, and it will keep you reading until you've finished the book. The suspense is maintained, and there is enough accurate detail about firearms, ballistics, and technical details to make it all highly believable. I have ordered another of Stephen Hunter's titles. If he does as well with the next as he did with this one, I'm hooked.
To make the story even more interesting, for me, Swagger, in the story, has a pre-'64 Winchester model 70 ("the rifleman's rifle") in .300 Holland & Holland (H&H) magnum caliber. I have one of the same rifles, in the same caliber, and it, too, will shoot sub-minute-of-angle.
This is a good book, written by one who has researched his subject.
Joseph (Joe) Pierre
author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books
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Summary: Amazon recommendation was right on the money
Review: I had never heard of this book, let alone its author Stephen Hunter. I happened to be looking through my recommendations on Amazon and found this book. I was kind of surprised, because it sounded a bit different than most of my other recommendations. Seeing that it had 5 stars with 140 reviews, I thought I'd give it a try.Wow. This book is awesome. Bob Lee Swagger is a man nobody should mess with. He's a smart, Southern boy who knows his guns and just wants to be left alone with his dog. Nick Memphis is a hard-working, well-liked FBI agent in New Orleans. The author really develops these characters (especially Swagger) to the point that I felt like I knew them and was there with them. There are so many twists & turns to this book - it's a constant game of cat & mouse and many times you're not sure who's the cat and who's the mouse. When I finished this book I was so upset that it was over. I really, really, really enjoyed this book and I especially loved Bob Lee Swagger. Semper Fi.
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Summary: The lone gunman--except now, you're rooting for him!
Review: Bob Lee Swagger is not a man to mess around with. He was a military sniper, with the second highest number of kills in Vietnam. Then he came home to a country that shunned sniping, and he went into seclusion in the Arkansas mountains. Now he's been called out. A shady government conspiracy wants to use him in an assassination--as the fallguy. And when Swagger does indeed fall for it, lured into a trap, he promises his tormentors will pay...with their blood... Helping him is FBI agent Nick Memphis, who's just recieved his third strike. An odd pair, but together, they must unravel a far-reaching conspiracy...and bring vengence upon those who deserve it. "Point of Impact" was the first Stephen Hunter novel I read. It got me hooked on his writing, though few other novels lived up to it ("Dirty White Boys" was pretty good, if I recall correctly). This novel is a thriller of the highest caliber (no pun intended). It's about a proud Southern gunman pushed to the limits...the one spot where you DON'T want him to be! This is a terrific, suspenseful book, and if you are a fan of thrillers and haven't read it yet, then you absolutely must.
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Summary: Phenomenal
Review: There simply are not enough superlatives to describe Point of Impact. This was a phenomenal book, clearly among my personal top-five list. In Point of Impact, Hunter presents Bob Lee Swagger (AKA "Bob the Nailer" due to his reputation as a Marine sniper during the Vietnam War) in a fast-paced conspiracy thriller. Hunter hooks you in the first few pages of the book as Swagger is hunting on his property in Arkansas. As the story unfolds, Swagger demonstrates the physical and mental toughness, decisiveness, patience, perseverance, and survival instincts that made him the best at what he does. Throughout the book, one comes to know and further appreciate the intricacies, both positive and negative, of being "Bob the Nailer." Action sequences and character development are interwoven and provide a complementary blend throughout the book. From start to finish, this book is impossible to put down.
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Summary: Thank you Stephen Hunter.
Review: Mr. Hunter, I was looking for something to read and looked through your books. They didn't have your latest novel so I bought Point of Impact, even though I had listened to it on audiotape a few years ago. When I opened the book to the dedication page it brought me to tears. I couldn't believe you had dedicated the book to my cousin John Burke. Thank you. The words in your acknowledgment are gracious and mean so much coming from such an accomplished writer. I've often wondered how John would have ever come back to the "world" after being a sniper in Vietnam. I imagine it would be difficult, the way you portray it in your books, especially here. And that realism is one reason I would recommend this book. The other is that it is just a really great book to read.
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