Hunter returns to the sniper theme that made The Master Sniper (1980) a mesmerizing suspense debut, though his later novels (The Spanish Gambit, etc.) have disappointed. This is his best since then. Can one forgive Hunter his dullish leading character and praise him for a fearless, warts-and-all rounded portrait of a master sniper from Arkansas, and even perhaps call Bob Lee Swagger a riveting hero bearing an unbearable burden? Swagger is a genius of the rifle with an encyclopedic background on manufacture and handcrafted ammo, possesses superhuman skill at weighing every conceivable possibility in yardage, windage, dampness, temperature, etc., and has the patience of a brass monkey for holding a position (sometimes for weeks) until his prey appears in the scope. His father won the Congressional Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima, and Bob should have won it as a Marine sniper in Vietnam, where he killed 87 men (confirmed, though actually many more) but was wounded by an even more skillful Russian sniper flown in especially to nail Bob. Now a stonyfaced recluse living in Arkansas' Ouchita Mountains, Bob is lured out of the hills by a phony outfit called RamDyne that wants him to stop that very same Russian from assassinating the President. Truth is, however, that Bob is being set up as the President's alleged lone assassin, an Oswald-like patsy in an incident scheduled for Louis Armstrong Park in New Orleans. When the real assassin fires and hits a prelate instead, Bob is shot by his phony team, escapes and finds himself wounded and on the lam, with his face on the covers of Time and Newsweek as the President's intended killer. Somehow he must track down the team that hired him.... A whiz-bang—especially if you're ballistic on ballistics. (First printing of 50,000)
Pub Date: Feb. 8, 1993
ISBN: 0-553-07139-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1992
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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