Bob Lee Swagger

Here are two interconnected plots that unfold simultaneously in this novel; one is set in the present, and deals with Bob Lee Swagger and Russ Pewtie, while the other is set in 1955, and deals with Bob Lee's father, Earl, and the events leading up to his death.

This book catches the reader up with Bob Lee about five years after the events in Point of Impact. He now has a daughter who is four years old, named Nikki, and he has married Julie Fenn, the widow of his fallen spotter, Donnie Fenn. He is living happily, if not humbly, in Arizona, trying to avoid the notoriety he gained during the events in Point of Impact.

A young man approaches him with a proposition. This young man's name is Russ Pewtie, the grown son of Bud Pewtie, who as described in Dirty White Boys was responsible for the death of Lamar Pye. Russ is a writer, and wants to write a book about Bob Lee's father, who was gunned down one night in 1955, near Bob's home town of Blue Eye, Arkansas, by Lamar's father, Jimmy.

As Russ and Bob Lee probe into the details surrounding Earl's death, there are some startling revelations, including a conspiracy to keep these details hidden, which give deeper insight into the history of Bob Lee.

The plot involves several of Hunter's signature interconnecting characters (who appear in various roles in more than one of his novels). These include Sam Vincent, the former Polk County prosecutor who appears in Point of Impact, and Frenchy Short, the CIA agent and Earl Swagger protege who appears in The Second Saladin, and also in the later Earl Swagger novels Hot Springs and Havana.

Part of the connection between the novel's two time periods is the role of Sam Vincent in the prosecution of the murderer of a young black girl in 1955, and the re-investigation of that case in the present. Vincent's feelings about race relations in the two periods, the contrasts between them, and his struggle to reconcile the two, are very well drawn. (Wikipedia)

Bob 'The Nailer' becomes involved in a plot by dirty big-government types and the story is about how he is first approached and used by them, and their subsequent attempts to end his life.

Disenchanted with warfare when invalided out of the Marine Corps in the 1970s, Bob retreats to a small town in Arkansas, where he lives in a trailer and devotes himself to firearms.

Here he is approached by representatives of RamDyne, a black-bag government organization whose personnel commit off-the-record atrocities as needed. The RamDyne people, masquerading as employees of Accutech, a high-end ammo manufacturer, enlist Bob's help. He detects their untruthfulness and confronts them, at which point they "reveal" to him their true motives: foiling an attempt on the life of the President of the United States at the hand of the same Soviet sniper who ended Bob's military career.

Bob agrees to work for them but in the end, is framed into the crime of attempted assassination. He escapes the frame and finds himself friendless, pursued by every law enforcement agency in the nation, pursued by RamDyne, and suffering two nearly fatal bullet wounds.

The major portion of the book details how he escapes the frame, wins absolution for the crime of which he was accused and wins the love of a woman. (Wikipedia)

This is the book that was made into the movie Shooter. For people new to Stephen Hunter and Bob Lee Swagger, the movie was great, but if you read and love this book, it was a bit disappointing. Too much change from the book, and some major elements were missed out.

It begins about four or five years after the events in Black Light. Bob Lee's daughter is now around 8, and he owns a horse ranch, where he cares for horses. He has been slipping into a deep depression due to his inability to properly support his family.

Alienating himself from his wife and child, they leave for a morning horseback ride with a friend from another ranch. His wife is shot and nearly killed by a sniper, and the friend is killed. Bob assumes that the man was mistaken for him, and killed in an attempt to kill Bob Lee. This act plunges him back into a world of violence and intrigue.

While his wife recuperates, he attempts to unravel the secrets behind the assault.

This book has a dual plot, with the present plot, dealing with Bob's investigation into his wife's attempted murder. The second plot is set in the past, beginning on a Marine Corps base in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

A young Donny Fenn is the squad leader of a group of Marines who perform the state funeral services for Marines killed in the Vietnam War, which is raging across the world. Donny is brought before his superiors and ordered to follow one of his men, who is suspected of sympathizing with peace demonstrators who are led by a charismatic man named Trig Carter. In turn, Trig is suspected of having ties to an extremist group. Incidentally, Donny's girlfriend, Julie, is involved with this group of war protestors. Donny discovers that his sympathies lie closer to Trig's friends, and rather than rat out his own man, Donny defies naval investigators, buying a one-way ticket to the front lines of the Vietnam war. Just before being shipped out, his commanding officer who admired Donny's courage, gives him enough money to run off with Julie and marry.

Donny meets up with Bob Lee Swagger, a Marine Sniper at the top of his game, joining him as Bob Lee's new spotter. Scourge of the North Vietnamese army, there is already a sizeable bounty on Bob Lee's head, but after an exciting firefight to rescue an overwhelmed outpost, a vengeful NVA Colonel calls out the big gun: Solaratov, a Russian sniper who is the only man alive who could possibly equal Bob Lee Swagger.

Donny is getting extremely short (close to going home). On Donny's last day in Viet Nam, a day he should spend completing paperwork that will send him home, he makes the fateful decision to go on one last reconnaissance with Bob Lee. Solaratov's bullet ends both Bob Lee's career in the Marine Corps and Donny Fenn's life.

Back in the present, Bob Lee is unravelling the tapestry of lies that have buried the past all these years and discovers that there may be more to Donny's death than he originally thought. (Wikipedia)

The story begins with Bob Lee now living in Idaho. There along with his wife, former wife of his spotter Donny Fenn, he is cultivating his land by using a scythe. The story starts while Bob Lee is cutting away at his land with the scythe while an expensive car pulls up. Bob Lee is aggravated by this, since his previous encounters with such cars and men in them have led him into troublesome situations.

Having this predisposition to the men within the car, Bob Lee confronts them to make them leave him and his family alone. Instead he finds a man roughly the same age as himself, looking for Bob Lee, since he is the son of the man that killed his father during the battle of Iwo Jima. Here the book changes to the situations that led to the awarding of the Medal of Honor, to Earl Swagger during a battle on Iwo Jima. (Wikipedia)

When his daughter Nikki, an investigative reporter, is seriously injured after her car is forced off a mountain road in Tennessee, Bob Lee Swagger hunts down those responsible for the accident. He unravels a criminal organisation disguised as a Baptist prayer camp and, with the help of Nick Memphis, his old pal from the FBI, thwarts their elaborately planned attempt to steal a cash truck right after a NASCAR race at the Bristol Motor Speedway. (Wikipedia)

Bob Lee has been brought in as a consultant to analyze the data collected from the scene of the assassinations. He concludes that the shootings were not made by the accused perpetrator. When Carl Hitchcock turns up dead from an apparent suicide he decides to investigate further to clear a fellow sniper's name. Swagger begins investigating, by attending a demonstration of the supposed device used in the assassinations. The demonstration introduces a group of Irish soldiers who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The novel concludes with Swagger showing his ability to out last and out wit his enemy in a duel of snipers, clearing the name of the fallen Hitchcock in the process.

A thriller that plunges deep into the world of high-tech national security, the hearts and minds of those who kill for duty, and the latest mission for veteran sniper Bob Lee Swagger- who may have finally met the only man who can outshoot him.

Who killed Whiskey 2-2?

And why won't it stay dead?

A marine sniper team on a mission in tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Whiskey 2-2 is ambushed by professionals using the latest high-tech shooting gear. Badly wounded, the team's sole survivor, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka "the Cruise Missile," is determined to finish his job. He almost succeeds when a mystery blast terminates his enterprise, leaving a thirty-foot crater where a building used to be-and where Sergeant Cruz was meant to be hiding.

Months pass. Ray's target, an Afghan warlord named Ibrahim Zarzi, sometimes called "The Beheader," becomes an American asset in the region and beyond, beloved by State, the Administration, and the Agency. He arrives in Washington for consecration as Our Man in Kabul. But so does a mysterious radio transmission, in last year's code. It's from Whiskey 2-2.

MISSION WILL BE COMPLETED.
CONFIDENCE IS HIGH.
Not Read This one yet!!

Is Ray Cruz back? Has he gone rogue, is he insane, or just insanely angry? Will he succeed, though his antagonists now include the CIA, the FBI, and the same crew of bad boys that nearly killed him in Zabol province? Not to mention Bob Lee Swagger and a beautiful CIA agent named Susan Okada who gives Swagger more than just a patriotic reason to take the case.

Swagger, the legendary hero of seven of Hunter's novels from Point of Impact to last year's bestselling I, Sniper, is recruited by the FBI to stop the Cruise Missile from reaching his target. The problem is that the more Swagger learns about what happened in Zabol, the more he questions the U.S. government's support of Zarzi and the more he identifies with Cruz as hunter instead of prey.