Tag Archives: Stephen Hunter

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Bullet Garden,’ by Stephen Hunter

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Now and then the major had to sideline the jeep as a column of Shermans ground along the road, pulling up a coughing fit’s worth of dust as well as releasing spumes of octane consumption and more noise than could be easily borne. They sounded like radiators clattering down a marble staircase.

If you’re my friend on Facebook, you may have noticed a couple “woe is me” posts from me in the last couple days. Those posts have provoked a couple very nice comments on my books, which I appreciate a lot.

But when I read a Stephen Hunter novel, I feel myself larval and unformed. This guy knows how to tell a story.

The Bullet Garden is his latest, and it’s an Earl Swagger book, about the father of Hunter’s regular hero. It’s been a while since he did an Earl Swagger book, and I remember thinking, when I read the last one, that there were signs he might enjoy those stories even more than the Bob Lee ones.

In the somewhat flexible chronology of Earl Swagger’s life, this book comes after his adventures on Tarawa in the South Pacific. In the European theater, the D-Day invasion has occurred, but the advancing Allies are bogged down in the “bocage,” the famous hedgerows of Normandy. One of their worst headaches is a company of ranging enemy snipers who consistently attack American patrols, picking off their officers just at sunrise or sunset, when most men can’t see well, and leaving the troops in panic.

Allied command wants the best sniper in the American military to come and figure out a way to kill these killers. So the summons goes to Sgt. Earl Swagger of the US Marines, who’s training leathernecks at Parris Island just now. The assignment goes with a brevet rank of Major in the US Army (!). Earl agrees to go – it could be interesting.

The story will take us to SHAEF headquarters in London – hopelessly politicized and riddled with spies. We meet Earl’s chief assistant, Lt. Leets (a character from a previous story, and, even better, a Minnesotan!), and Basil St. Florian, hero of Basil’s War. There’s Leets’ gorgeous sweetheart, a secretary at SHAEF, who has to deal with unwanted advances from a corrupt officer. There’s Archer and Goldberg, a couple hapless dogface draftees who turn into unlikely heroes. And there’s also the mysterious sniper, a man with a strange history and stranger motives.

You’ll encounter a lot of name-dropping in this book, especially of the literary kind. Very few names are given, but they’re all easily recognizable; some are delightful surprises. The villain of the story (the physical villain; there’s a strategic villain too) is disguised by a minor name change, but should be fairly easy to identify, at least at one remove (contact me if you have trouble).

But it’s the sheer, masterful storytelling that amazed me. The plot is complex, but as smoothly and efficiently assembled as the lock of a custom hunting rifle. I cared about the characters and my interest never flagged for a moment.

I have only a few quibbles, which seem to be editing problems. The author loses track of a female character’s hair color at one point, and seems to get confused about the mechanics of driving on the left side of the road at another.

But all in all, The Bullet Garden is a tour de force of thriller writing. Highly recommended. Cautions for language and adult topics.

Authors, Fiction, Reading

Interview with Stephen Hunter

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Stephen Hunter has a new book out, and I’ve got it. It is, needless to say, a sheer delight to read. At the rate I’m going, I’ll probably have a review tomorrow. So, in anticipation, I post the short interview above, which is pretty old. But most of the interviews I found with him were heavy on gun topics. I have no objection to gun topics myself, being a gun nut too. But I thought, in this space, I wanted to find something focused a little more on storytelling, because, however much an expert Hunter may be on gun topics, he’s even more knowledgeable about plotting and characterization. I think this interview, from 2010, advertising his novel I, Sniper, showcases that. To an extent.

The interviewer refers to the roman à clef nature of the novel’s beginning. Most of you are probably familiar with the term, and it’s explained as they talk.

Advice to writer’s: If you’re going to write a roman à clef, aim high. Portray famous people – political figures and celebrities. Do not write a roman à clef in which you show that guy you hated in high school dealing drugs or visiting brothels, unless you’ve disguised him beyond all recognition. If he can guess who he is in the book, he can sue you. Public figures can’t do that; they’re pretty much fair game, according to law.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Targeted,’ by Stephen Hunter

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The shooting stopped not out of mercy or rationality, but out of ammo depletion. Each automatic and semiautomatic weapon came up dry at almost the same second. Anyone whose eardrums had not been shattered by the ruckus would have heard an anvil chorus of clicks, snaps, slams, curses, and chunks as, momentarily drained of IQ, the troopers decided that if they pulled real hard the guns would start shooting again.

I always wonder (with anticipation) what stunt Stephen Hunter will pull to squeeze one more story out of the Bob Lee Swagger franchise. When you’re writing an action character who ages in real time, and you’ve gotten him up to his mid-seventies, generating drama turns into a real challenge. Generating plausible drama would seem nearly impossible.

And yet Hunter pulls it off again in Targeted. I won’t say the story is quite plausible, but it’s carried off with such style and verve that it works, in the grand tradition.

In our last story, old Bob Lee saved the country from a major terrorist plot with a near-impossible rifle shot. In the grand tradition of American politics, the reward he earns is a congressional investigation, led by a predatory old congresswoman who may, or may not, be based on a living person. Oh, we have nothing but respect for you personally, the investigators say (they are lying), but we need to seriously consider the procedures and protocols that led to your action. Were anyone’s civil rights violated? Did systemic racism inform the operation in any way?

Just when things look very bad for the old sniper, the whole thing gets turned upside down by the arrival by a group of mysterious convicts who take everybody hostage. Bob, plastic-cuffed to a wheelchair, is in a poor position to save the day, but a surprising ally will appear.

Lots of action, a good dollop of political satire, and one of the most dependable action heroes out there. I got a kick out of Targeted, and recommend it highly.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Basil’s War,’ by Stephen Hunter

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In fact, in one sense, the Third Reich and its adventure in mass death was a conspiracy against irony. Perhaps that is why Basil hated it so much and fought it so hard.

First of all, I have to take back a criticism of this book that I made last night. I said I was reading a novella I’d read before, which had been simply re-titled. Now that I’ve completed Basil’s War, based on the novella Citadel, I see that it is in fact a full novel (though a short one for author Stephen Hunter). He took Citadel and added some new action (mostly at the end), and made the whole thing a lot more complex.

Basil St. Florian is a British SOE agent in World War II. Like the character in Beau Geste, he possesses almost no virtue save courage. He’s good at lying, stealing, killing, and seducing women. In ordinary civilian life, he’d probably end up in prison. But now, as a top field agent, he’s more likely to end up dead – and he isn’t greatly concerned about it.

In a secret war room under London, he gets briefed (by Alan Turing, among others) on his next mission (should he choose to accept it), which will involve making his way to Paris and into a museum library. There he is to photograph certain pages from a rare manuscript, which has been used as a “book code.” This code will identify a Russian agent in the Bletchley Park cryptography operation. There are reasons for this, but Basil’s job is to get to the book.

We follow Basil as he parachutes into France, steals false identity papers, bluffs his way through security checks, and generally stays one step ahead of the Germans – until he loses a step.

Basil is an interesting character to follow – he’s very good at his job, and more sympathetic than he probably ought to be, mostly because of his wit. The book is full of mordant observations on the nature of war and of warriors, plus the characters of the French and the Germans. (As well as intimate moments with Vivian Leigh.) The riddles within enigmas that unfold at the end are clever and surprising.

Stephen Hunter is a fine thriller writer, and I think most readers will enjoy Basil’s War. Cautions for mature material, but for a war story it’s pretty lighthearted.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Game of Snipers,’ by Stephen Hunter

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The West cannot be destroyed through numbers; it must be destroyed through its imagination.

You know what you’re getting when you start one of Stephen Hunter’s Bob Lee Swagger novels. It’s not realism (though a fair amount of technical detail may be involved). A Bob Lee Swagger novel is transparent bunkum, like the imitative title of this book. But the entertainment value for money is 100 per cent.

Game of Snipers opens with old Bob Lee, relaxing on the front porch of his ranch house, getting visit from Mrs. Janet McDowell, widow and gold star mother. Her only son, she tells him, was killed in the Middle East by a legendary Al Quaida killer known as “Juba the Sniper.” Since then she has made it her obsession to learn all she can about the man. She has traveled to the Middle East and been beaten and raped. She even converted to Islam (this did not please me), to “get inside his head.” She thinks she knows where the man is hiding, but she’s worn out her welcome with the CIA and the military. Could Bob Lee use his contacts to get her a hearing, in the hope that he can be stopped at last?

Bob Lee goes to his friends in Mossad, and (improbably) is invited along on a raid on Juba’s hiding place. The raid misses Juba himself, but Bob Lee, with his sniper’s eye, notices a clue that tells him Juba is planning a job in the United States – a high-profile assassination at the distance of a mile.

He takes this information to the FBI. They pull his old friend Nick Memphis (improbably) out of retirement to coordinate a desperate effort to learn the place, the time, and the target. Meanwhile we follow Juba himself – fanatical, concentrated, and not without honor, as he prepares an act of terror that might very well tear the United States apart.

As with all Bob Lee Swagger novels, I didn’t believe it for a minute, but it was a fun ride. Stephen Hunter combines the ability to expertly raise the plot stakes with a mastery of character and dialogue. A fun ride is even better in the company of old Bob the Nailer.

Highly recommended. Mild cautions for language.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Citadel,’ by Stephen Hunter

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Citadel

A slight rain fell; the cobblestones glistened; the whole thing had a cinematic look that Basil paid no attention to, as it did him no good at all and he was by no means a romantic.

In the wake of reading Stephen Hunter’s G-man (reviewed below), I also downloaded his novella Citadel, available as an e-book. I had some niggles with G-man, but I found Citadel pure delight – a brisk, exciting mystery and spy story.

Basil St. Florian is an agent for Britain’s SOE during World War II. He accepts a dodgy assignment with little chance of success – to fly into occupied France, break into an antiquarian library in Paris, and photograph selected pages of a rare manuscript. Supposedly (nobody’s really sure) those pages contain the key to a “book code” which will allow (for reasons explained in the story) the British to pass information on German plans to the Soviets. Alan Turing is involved.

Basil is an interesting character – the kind of upper-class ne’er-do-well who was never useful to society until the war gave scope for his less respectable talents. His adventures introduce him to a bore of a Luftwaffe officer and a rather decent Abwehr agent.

Citadel was fun. Lots of wit went into the story, and it was fascinating to watch the unflappable Basil overcome repeated seemingly fatal setbacks. The plot tied itself up neatly in the end and left a good taste in my mouth.

Recommended light adventure and suspense, with a touch of Hogan’s Heroes. Only minor cautions for mature stuff.

Fiction, Reviews

‘G-Man,’ by Stephen Hunter

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G-Man

Dave Lull reminded me that the new Bob Lee Swagger book by Stephen Hunter was coming out the other day, and I was on it like a fedora on J. Edgar Hoover. I had a good time with the book, though it’s not among my favorites in the series.

In G-Man, old Bob Lee finally sells off the family homestead in Blue Eye, Arkansas. As the house is being demolished, workmen discover a strongbox buried in the foundation. Inside are a pristine Colt 1911 pistol, a hand-drawn map, an old, uncirculated thousand-dollar bill, and a piece of metal that looks like a rifle suppressor, though Bob Lee can’t identify it right off.

Various clues indicate the box must have been buried by his grandfather, Charles F. Swagger, a kind of a mystery man. He was county sheriff, and a World War I hero, and an angry alcoholic. Bob Lee’s father Earl made it his life’s goal to be nothing like him. The Colt 1911 belongs to a batch that went to the FBI in 1934. Could old Charles have been an FBI agent for a while? Continue reading ‘G-Man,’ by Stephen Hunter →

Fiction, Reviews

‘I, Ripper,’ by Stephen Hunter

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Stephen Hunter, after years of writing successful sniper novels, has taken a flyer with a change of genre—a historical thriller. I, Ripper is a fictional retelling of the Jack the Ripper murders which is not intended to solve the historical mystery, but to illuminate the history of modern ideas.

The story is told through the eyes of three characters. One is a young London reporter who calls himself “Jeb” (we don’t learn his true identity until late in the story). By luck he’s the first newspaper man on the scene of the initial prostitute murder in Whitechapel, and he becomes his paper’s chief man on the story. He even bestows on the murderer the nickname by which he’ll be known to history.

The other narrators are the Ripper himself, in a fictional journal in which he does not reveal his identity, and a young prostitute who describes in a series of letters how she and her fellow streetwalkers react to the killings.

Jeb wants to do more to uncover the killer, in the absence of effective work by the official police. He makes the acquaintance of a renowned linguistics scholar, who produces what today we’d call a “profile” of the killer. Armed with this profile, Jeb and the professor reduce the pool of suspects to a few men, and then one.

Then the investigation explodes in surprises and a dramatic confrontation.

I, Ripper isn’t a bad novel on its own terms. I found it difficult to read at the beginning, because the murders are described in unpleasant detail. The final working out of the story was much to my liking, however.

But I don’t think I can recommend it to our audience, unless you have a strong stomach.