Product Description

When four famous 1960s radicals are gunned down, including the wife of an international media mogul, it would appear to be an open-and-shut case. A wealth of evidence ties the chief suspect, retired Marine sniper Carl Hitchcock, to the murders. Holder, until recently, of the record number of kills in Vietnam and anxious to reclaim his title, Hitchcock's subsequent suicide would seem to confirm his guilt. But FBI assistant director Nick Memphis has his doubts -- and calls on former Marine Corps sniper Bob Lee Swagger to investigate. As Swagger digs deeper, it becomes clear that matters are more complicated than would initially appear. The shots were not executed with the scope of a 1972 rifle, Hitchcock's weapon of choice, but by a high-tech scope used by active Marines. But as Swagger starts to unravel the tangled web of connections surrounding the murders, he finds his own days may be numbered. Because he's about to face one of his most ruthless adversaries yet -- a sniper whose keen intellect and pinpoint accuracy rivals his own. The end result will be a bloody confrontation that only one of them can survive.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3935 in Books
• Published on: 2009-11-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

About the Author
Chief film critic at the Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, Stephen Hunter is the author of fourteen bestselling thrillers, including The 47th Samurai, Time to Hunt, Black Light, Point of Impact, Havana and Hot Springs. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Customer Reviews

No mas, please.
What a strange author our Mr. Hunter has turned out to be.
His first two books were turgid, unimaginative affairs which, if memory serves me, were published several years before the Swagger character came into being.
He then wrote four or five masterful books which almost redefined the action thriller and in the process created the wonderful Bob Lee Swagger in all his glory.
Then, for some reason, the whole thing seems to have gone pear shaped.
The last four offerings from Hunter would make many a less talented writer blush with embarrassment and leads a reader to wonder wether Mr Hunter should maybe move in a different direction altogether, although, one supposes that the advance fee on each new work must lead to considerable temptation on the authors part to keep churning out such dross as I, Sniper.
The plot for I Sniper is so unbelievable as to be laughable, the baddies are totally one dimensional and Swagger himself despite being in his mid sixties seems to have become superhuman.
All through the book, conclusions are jumped too, more logical scenario's totally ignored and almost every lazy plotting device available to a writer copiously abused.
The chapter towards the end of the book where the main villian tediously explains to Swagger the whole plot and the reasoning behind it reminded me of the denoument of an episode of Scooby Doo so amateurish was it.
And the dialogue-- Hunter writes dialogue that makes you cringe.( just read the telephone conversation with his wife on Page 234 to see what I mean)
Some of the interaction with Anto Grogan and his band of Irish compatriots is laugh out loud bad and is truly not worthy of someone who can write in the way that we know Hunter is capable of.
On the whole it must now be time fot Swagger to hang up his boots and I would respectfully suggest that unless Stephen Hunter can somehow rediscover his mojo he may well be advised to follow suit.