Rating: 
Summary: Not Hunter's strongest work
Review: "Pale Horse Coming" is yet another book using the fictional Swagger family of Arkansas. Hunter is a competent writer who knows his audience. Fans of the series like heroes (and villians) larger than life and substantive references to the culture of firearms. The "Swagger" series is generally good reading, but uneven in quality. "Pale Horse Coming" starts well but loses focus. Perhaps the most distracting part of the book is using famous gunman/gun writers as characters. What is meant as an homage feels thin and tinny. A note to Hunter--some of your readers are smart enough to see real life parallels without the spoon feeding.Through the books, it increasingly difficult to differentiate between the Swaggers. The son (Bob Lee) and the father (Earl) have become nearly identical... stoics heroes who struggle with internal demons and the gift of killing. Through the series, the Swaggers have almost comic book powers of endurance, tactical knowledge and gun skills. "Pale Horse Coming" has the bone structure of a good novel, but falls short of Hunter's other work. "Hot Springs" and "Dirty White Boys" are both examples of better writing. "Pale Horse Coming" series feels like a Hunter, a talented writer, is paying the bills with another mass market novel. Hunter has a feel for writing the rural south and enough talent to make the book readable... but fans of the series may walk away a bit disappointed. To borrow a pop culture reference, the book comes close to the "jumping the shark." This is a "must buy" for Hunter fans. Readers who haven't tried to series are better served by one of his earlier novels.
Rating: 
Summary: A fun entertaining thriller
Review: Earl Swagger and his son Bob Lee are the antiheros of this wonderful series of thrillers by bestselling author, Stephen Hunter. Guns play a major part of his work. They are lovingly described and their use is always necessary to gain the desired result. The books are always thick, yet, the pages fly by so quickly that they read like much shorter books. The writing is always strong and sure and this latest is no exception.
It is 1951 and Earl Swagger is approached by his good friend, Sam Vincent, ex prosecutor of Polk County, Arkansas. Sam accepts a job from a Chicago attorney to locate a black man living in Thebes State Penal Colony in Thebes, Mississippi. The prison is truly Hell on Earth surrounded by swamps and only accessible by a muddy river. The guards are brutal and gain much perverse pleasure in torturing the inmates. Sam just wants Earl to know where he is headed and to investigate his whereabouts if he doesn't return in a certain time. As expected, Sam is not heard from and Earl must start on his perilous journey to rescue his friend.
Stephen Hunter, a film critic for The Washington Post, is an expert on entertainment and uses his expertise when creating his novels. They are among the best thrillers being written today. It is true that the plot can be quite contrived and silly at times, however, they work well. The characters are straight out of the pages of pulp fiction or comic books. The sadistic prison guard, Bigboy, is a pure stereotype. Earl is a superman able to suffer great punishment in just a few minutes than the mere mortal man can endure in a lifetime. Yet, it is fun to root for Earl Swagger to fight and defeat evil wherever he finds it.
Rating: 
Summary: Dy-no-mite
Review: As with all of Stephen Hunter's Swagger books I've read, this was great, great, great, This is certainly not a 'guy' thing. I'll read this book again.
Rating:
Summary: Top-notch Hunter
Review: After his good but relatively weak Hot Springs, Stephen Hunter has returned to top form with Pale Horse Coming, the latest in his Swagger series of stories. Taking place in the South of the early fifties, this story follows Swagger's dealing with the nasty Mississipi village of Thebes, a poor town isolated in a swamp where the residents live as virtual slaves and the local state prison is a hellish place from which few emerge. Swagger, attempting to rescue a friend from this prison winds up in their clutches instead; despite the fact that Swagger is an exceptionally tough guy, Thebes is even tougher. With the exception of just a couple of the principal heroes, there are few complex characters in here, but Hunter's strengths have always been with action and suspense and this one has tons of it. This is one of Hunter's best, but even if you've never read any of his other stories, if you like this type of book, you will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Simply outstanding!
Review: Pale Horse Coming is classic Stephen Hunter -- an epic battle of good versus evil, the limits of human endurance, courage under fire, loyalty, and of course, guns. The story centers around two characters from Hunter's previous works -- Sam Vincent, gentleman lawyer, and Earl Swagger, WWII veteran and medal of honor winner. On behalf of a client, Vincent journeys deep into the wilderness of Mississippi to check on the status of a prisoner at Thebes State Prison - the location where the worst of the worst "colored" offenders are sent. Suspecting that he is walking into a dangerous situation, Vincent obtains the word of Swagger that he will come looking for Vincent if he does not return from Mississippi in a pre-specified duration. Of course, Vincent walks into something that is beyond even his worst nightmares, thus engaging Swagger in his pledge to follow Vincent. The story moves well, has lots of action, suspense, and frequent plot twists, while giving the author a forceful understanding of race relations in the deep South during the 1950's. If you have liked Hunter's previous works, you will enjoy this as well. It is a compelling page turner.
Rating:
Summary: Another Good Book by Hunter!
Review: Another really good read by Mr. Hunter, and stonger than Hot Springs. There is no writer quite like Hunter, so it is a pleasure to continue to have him as an author. I've read almost all his books and will continue to read as many more as he wishes to write.
Rating:
Summary: hard to put down..
Review: Well this book was hard for me to put down so much I read it in a day.It was a good story, good guys vs.bad guys. Much like your shoot out at the O.k Coral. I am not from the South the book goes into some details of life in the South. The life of a moral laywer, the war hero, and the uglyness of some good ol' boys. Very good book.
Rating:
Summary: Strong as always
Review: rating: 4.5 stars With stephen hunter you know two things right off the bat: 1) the story will race along and 2) There will be lots of shooting. This book is no exception. The plot is mentioned elsewhere so I won't belabor that point. And yes, the dialog at the end seems very 'old south' at times (or what I imagine it to be, being an australian and all)...Apart from that the bok grabs you by throat and doesn't let go. There are no slow patches or boring bits. This is an honest to god page turner (then why four-and half stars? for the dialog at times). And it's meaty enough to last more than a couple of hours. Of course the main protagonist is the one and only Earl Swagger, and by god he's a man machine in this book. ABsolutely amazing. Poor earl get's himself in some real trouble trying to save his friend, a lawyer, hired to investigate the disapperance of somebody in Thebes, Mississipi...a prison farm of the worst sort (well, so he thinks anyway). Earl has to be the toughest he as ever been to survive this. Without giving the story away let's just say that there are layers of plot of here, that are well developed, clever and lend the end a more poignant bang, than is typical. This story is quite satisifying just for the plot alone, without the action on top (that's just like chocolate syrup on the ice cream!). So if you like Hunter, you like plot and characterization, and you don't mind Hunter's spin on 'the magnificent seven' and 'seven against thebes', you'll love this. Like I said, no slow bits, races along, has good action and Earl in the center of all things. And this is good. Only criticism: Bobby-lee doesn't get much of a part. Redeeming that to some extent (and totally cool as well): Audie Ryan...Sounds oddly like some other american with an irish name doesn't it??? Warning: this book will make 6+ hours of your life disappear if you're not careful! But it's a good way to lose 6+hours... Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Vengeance isn¿t always the Property of the Lord
Review: It's 1951 and Former Arkansas prosecutor Sam Vincent takes an assignment from a Chicago lawyer to investigate the disappearance of a client somewhere in the backwoods by Thebes, Mississippi, near the Thebes State Penal Farm. Sam doesn't want the job, but needs the money so he goes to Mississippi and finds a brutal place where white guards dominate and abuse their helpless black victims, and where something much worse is going on. He tells his best friend Arkansas cop Earl Swagger and when Sam gets into trouble, it's up to Earl to get him out of it and he does it in a way you'll never forget. Five stars for this very descriptive, revenge type novel. Reviewed by Vesta Irene
Rating: 
Summary: Must be a guy thing
Review: I can appreciate the fact that I probably didn't like this book because it was written for guys - the ones who like war and guns and righteous vengeance. I think I could have enjoyed the story and overlooked the total mess made of the second half of the book if the dialog hadn't been so jarringly archaic and stilted. An example: "You have killed me dead, sir." "I have, sir, for the evil you have done." Okay, I did get some good laughs from that, so two stars for the funny dialog. As for the rest....I guess I'll never get it.
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