I, Sniper

Bob Lee Swagger #6

by Stephen Hunter

Four famed '60s radicals are gunned down at long range by a sniper. Under enormous media scrutiny, the FBI quickly concludes that Marine war hero Carl Hitchcock, whose ninety-three kills were considered the leading body count tally among American marksman in Vietnam, was the shooter. But as the Bureau, led by Special Agent Nick Memphis, bears down, Hitchcock commits suicide. In closing out the investigation, Nick discovers a case made in heaven: everything fits, from timeline, ballistics, and forensics to motive, means, and opportunity. Maybe it's a little too perfect. Nick asks his friend, the retired Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger, to examine the data. Using a skill set no other man on earth possesses, Swagger soon discovers unseen anomalies and gradually begins to unravel a sophisticated conspiracy -- one that would require the highest level of warcraft by the most superb special operations professionals. As Swagger penetrates the deepest secrets of the sniper world and its new technology, Nick stands firm in the face of hardball PR initiatives and an inflamed media calling for his ouster.

Swagger soon closes in, and those responsible will stop at nothing to take him out. But these heavily armed men make the mistake of thinking they are hunting Bob, when he is, in fact, hunting them.

"I, Sniper" will satisfy Stephen Hunter's legions of fans and win him droves of new ones with its signature blend of brilliant plotting, vivid characters, razor-sharp dialogue, and extraordinary gunfights. And when Swagger and the last of his antagonists finally face each other, reenacting a classic ritual of arms, it is clear that at times there's nothing more necessary than a good man with a gun and the guts to use it.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery, Action, Military Fiction, Suspense, Crime

418 pages, Hardcover

First published December 29, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Stephen Hunter is the author of fourteen novels, and a chief film critic at The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Reviews

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, you're seeing that right. I'm giving this book 5 big stars. This is unabashed brain candy. This is a mental big mac with a large side of fries, an extra large Coke and the meal includes your favorite pie smothered in ice cream. This is the sixth Bob Lee Swagger novel and it's my favorite so far.

This one goes back to the roots of the Bob Lee story, back to the Sniper story. The book has a cast of characters "who are completely fictional and if they bear any resemblance to any actual person living or dead" it's completely coincidental...really...completely coincidental...no doubt.

Anyway, as the book opens several people are killed by a sniper. The FBI has a plethora of evidence that leads them to one man. That man is "Carl Hitchcock" legendary sniper from Vietnam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_H... (I had a military reference here but they changed where the link led so I replaced it with a Wiki link). The case seems open and closed, air tight, iron clad...except when Bob Lee looks into it, things don't hold up.

There is also a sort of inside joke that runs through this book that older readers (Vietnam era readers) and many country music fans will get. I found myself laughing out loud a few times. I'll say more about that under a spoiler tag later.

So, if you like a good action read I believe you'll like this one. If you're a gun enthusiast I think you'll like it (some humor here to). Anyone who's a shooter target or whatever has seen the "looks" and dealt with the attitude that "you must be just a bit off" if you..."like guns". You know...you're a, "gun nut". Right? Mr Hunter gets some humor from that. The action here picks up as Bob looks into things and then gives us one of those slam bang page turning rides that the best action books manage.

There is a bit of...sliding close to the edge of the "suspension of disbelief" precipice here. But it didn't push me over (as he, Mr. Hunter did a bit in The 47th Samurai). I can enthusiastically recommend this one. Enjoy.


Now...are you one who picked up the slightly inside joke? If your are you might enjoy what I put under the spoiler tag. If you've read the book but don't know what I'm talking about or have just an idea...here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGmUsJ...

If you know what this is enjoy. If you don't and you've read the book you'll really get a laugh from it. Even if you're not a huge fan of country music play it through and listen to the lyrics. This song was a hit in 1960....as I said, enjoy. Oh and if you haven't read the book if you listen to the song now then you can laugh along as you read the book, especially in the final climatic scene.

[Olaf Gütte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bei Stephen Hunter erübrigt sich eine Bewertung,
spannend von der ersten bis zur letzten Seite,
wie alle seine Swagger-Thriller.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few good quotes: 1. "The time has long passed in America when one can say of a sixty-eight-year-old woman that she is 'still' beautiful, the snarky little modifier, all buzzy with irony, signifying some kind of miracle that one so elderly could be so attractive." 2. Again writing about old age: "the realization there were a lot more leaves on the ground than on the trees." 3. "The head is a vault, a treasure chest, a reliquary, the container of all our sacraments, of all that makes us human." 4. In writing about America's "free press" the writer's character calls their version of truths "the narrative" and says that it rules people, especially the politics of Washington: "The narrative is the set of assumptions the press believes in, possibly without even knowing that it believes in them. It's so powerful because it's unconscious...it's a set of casual...assumptions about a reality they've never really experienced that's arranged in such a way as to reinforce their....importance to the system and the way they've chosen to live their lives. It arranges things a certain way that they all believe in...it permeates their whole culture. They know, for example that Bush is a moron and Obama a saint. They know communism was a phony threat cooked up by right-wing cranks...They know Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction, the response to Katrina was 'messed' up, torture never works...Soft power good, hard power bad, forgiveness excellent, punishment counterproductive...Their narrative is the bedrock of their culture, the keystone of their faith, the altar of their church. They don't even know they're true believers, because in theory they despise the true believer in anything. They will absolutely destroy anybody who makes them question all that." 5. "...a tie that was more toward the R than the O in the Roy G. Biv spectrum."

I also enjoyed this author's vocabulary (as usual). Here are some of his word choices that were more precise than most authors would have chosen: cogent, aquiline, seethe, confreres, opprobrium, feckless, opacity, banjax, probity, fractal, insouciance, redounded, spall, defilade, spanging, atomized, languished, ablutions, revetments, nexus, cadre, reticle, parabola, palavered, accretion, joinery, abjured, arcana.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I, Sniper gets a massive 5 Stars for excellence in the explanation of scientific principles of shooting things/people from long ranges and the detailed technical world of guns and ammo. Also for the deep dive into the gun culture and the mind of someone dedicated to long range killing. After all this is a book about a sniper. Actually about a bunch of snipers. Hunter knows a lot about this specialized military skill set.

I didn’t think you could actually write a book so closely aligned to real people. “Hanoi Joan” in place of Hanoi Jane? Many of the characters are virtual clones of people you will recognize…they should have gotten royalties. Short story, a “crazed” Marine sniper Vietnam veteran is accused of killing a bunch of 60’s peaceniks/activists and then committing suicide. Bob Lee Swagger, a famous Marine sniper is called into look over the killings because everything is just too neatly tied up. A great story follows.

Usually I’m not a fan of author politics showing up in a story if it isn’t really called for. I wait to see if it is clever or clumsy. Hunter is clever and it is a key part of the story. There is real pressure by a “billionaire cable TV news founder” formerly married to “Hanoi Joan” to close the investigation down. The head FBI guy is targeted by the DC press, in particular a NY Times reporter, Banjax. Hunter skewers the media mob as they gang up on the intrepid FBI chief. In this scene, a young FBI agent (who has been tagged with a nickname of “Starling”) is talking with another agent about to fight the media madness:

“Here’s what I’m asking: why can’t we do something? Do we just have to take it? Can’t we find our reporter? Who’ll tell our side and make Nick look good?”

“You’re so young, Starling. You must actually believe in justice or something fantastic like that.”

“I do.”

“Let me tell you what’s going on, and why this one is so touchy. We are fighting the narrative. You do not fight the narrative. The narrative will destroy you. The narrative is all-powerful. The narrative rules. It rules us, it rules Washington, it rules everything. Now ask me, ‘What is the narrative?”

“What is the narrative?”

“The narrative is the set of assumptions the press believes in, possibly without even knowing that it believes in them. It’s so powerful because it’s unconscious. It’s not like they get together every morning and decide ‘These are the lies we tell today.’ No, that would be too crude and honest. Rather, it’s a set of casual, nonrigorous assumptions about a reality they’ve never really experienced that’s arranged in such a way as to reinforce their best and most ideal presumptions about themselves and their importance to the system and the way they’ve chosen to live their lives. It’s a way of arranging things a certain way that they all believe in without ever really addressing carefully. It permeates their whole culture. They know, for example, that Bush is a moron and Obama a saint. They know communism was a phony threat cooked up by right-wing cranks as a way to leverage power to the executive. They know Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, the response to Katrina was fucked up, torture never works, and mad Vietnam sniper Carl Hitchcock killed the saintly peace demonstrators. Cheney’s a devil, Biden’s a genius. Soft power good, hard power bad. Forgiveness excellent, punishment counterproductive, capital punishment a sin. See, Nick’s fighting the narrative. He’s going against the story, and the story was somewhat suspiciously concocted exactly to their prejudices, just as Jayson Blair’s made-up stories and Dan Rather’s Air National Guard documents were. And the narrative is the bedrock of their culture, the keystone of their faith, the altar of their church. They don’t even know they’re true believers, because in theory they despise the true believer in anything. But they will absolutely de-frackin’-stroy anybody who makes them question all that, and Nick had the temerity to do so, even if he didn’t quite realize it at the time. That’s why, led by brother Banjax and whoever is slipping him data, they have to destroy Nick. I don’t know who or what’s behind it, but I do know this: they have all the cards, and if you play in that game, they will destroy you too.

“Why can’t we simply destroy the narrative?”

“Starling, it’s everywhere. It’s all things. It’s permanent. It’s beyond. It’s beneath. It’s above. It’s in the air, the music, the furniture, the DNA, the blood, if these assholes had blood.”

“I say, ‘Destroy the narrative.”

“I say, ‘You will yourself be destroyed.”

She achieved a particularly cute and fetchingly petulant look, so totally charming that he fell in love with her until he remembered he had a wife and three kids.

“So you think it’s hopeless?” she asked.

“Starling—Agent Chandler, Jean, Jean, that’s it, right? Jean, listen, you do not want to get involved with these birds. They are smart and in their way they are ruthless, they will smile at you and charm you and look you in the eye, and for something they believe is the Truth, they will cut your heart out and let you bleed out in the sun. You do not need that. You have a bright future in a job you were meant to do, and if Nick gets the ax and if I get the second ax, that’s the way the ax falls. You go on with your career and put a lot of bad guys away and don’t get hung up in this stinking town. Nick s gone, sad to say; I guess I am too, sad to say. You do not owe us a thing; you owe that cornball lady with the blindfold and the weighing pans in her mitt. She’s the one you owe, not us.

One thing you can count on and that is Bob Lee Swagger getting into and out of tight situations. He is a smart guy. Highly recommended summer beach reading. Or any other time. Just plain fun.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unquestionable improvement over the head-scratchingly bizarre detours into martial arts and, of all fucking things, NASCAR, but not the full-bore return to action-thriller glory I was hoping for. Honestly, if it had been any other author I probably wouldn’t have kept going after those two but I know Hunter can write the shit out of some really, really great action thrillers with tons of personality and great writing (Point of Impact, Dirty White Boys, Time to Hunt, and Pale Horse Coming are all master classes in writing propulsive thrillers that reek of cordite and spilt blood.) However, when I saw this on the shelf and saw that Hunter seemed to be returning to what he does best I had to grab it.

You gotta give the man credit for always having great starts to his books. He’s using roman a clef in this section, but the book basically starts out with Jane Fonda getting her heart blasted into nonexistence by a hidden sniper’s bullet while she’s dining on some swanky restaurant’s patio. I’m aware of all the “Hanoi Jane” stuff and while I think that was a really douchey thing to do to the poor men and boys suffering and dying in the Vietnamese jungle, don’t really think she deserves to get publicly murdered in such a brutal fashion. All that said, I still have to applaud Hunter’s ballsiness for starting a book like that. A few more murders of famed anti-Vietnam 60s radicals follow and soon it all gets blamed on famed Vietnam sniper Carl Hitchcock (again, a thinly veiled analog to the real-life Carlos Hathcock.)

The FBI agent in charge of the investigation is our own Nick Memphis, returning from a bunch of previous Swagger books. He smells something fishy and calls Bob Lee in to investigate. Of course things are not as they seem, and this leads Bob the Nailer on one of his most investigation-heavy adventures so far. We all know Bob is a mankiller of the highest order but he’s also smart and dedicated and makes a great detective. 400 pages of twists and turns build the tension and lead Bob into the inevitable violent showdown against bad people. And this is where, super confusingly, things went wrong. I’m not gonna go into details due to spoilers but after the book I kind of had literary blue balls. One thing you can always count on Hunter to due is provide a great climax that puts even the most visceral and thrilling action film to shame. This didn’t happen in this book. Instead we got a few weak sequences and boom, it’s over.

This was due to a few things, most notably the antagonist(s) being pathetically easy to spot early on in the book, and maddeningly, yet another foray into a weird setting and mode of action that is just not Bob or Mr. Hunter’s “thing.” I know the author loves to take chances and have fun and keep things exciting for himself, and I totally respect that. It just doesn’t translate into great reading for me. All those complaints aside, this really was a return to form for the series, even if not to the level I was hoping for. If you were as irritated and bored by the previous two books in the series you should really give Mr. Hunter another shot (no pun intended) with this one.

[Bicky · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you really hate the New York Times, this book is for you. Otherwise, stay away.
The plot opens with four famous anti-Vietnam war protestors being killed by a sniper. By the time the FBI identifies him as a famous Marine sniper from that era, he has committed suicide. Bob Lee Swagger, a famous Marine sniper himself is called in as a consultant by his FBI friend Nick Memphis to make sure the FBI got it right. Swagger soon realises that actually the whole thing is a setup.
After this promising beginning, the novel becomes a diatribe against the “eastern asshole press” and the New York Times in particular – “yeah,well, whoever thought up democracy never heard of the Times, he thought.” It is interesting that Swagger who does not read newspapers and just watches Fox News continues to treat the New York Times as the only powerful media outlet.
The plot continues but a major element, the passionate element involves the New York Times. It and its reporters are shown as purveyors of planted stories, true and false. The entire staff is shown as not only gullible but stupid. The takedown of the arch villain, the New York Times, is obviously the high point of this book.
The rest of the plot seems to be an afterthought with some further blasts against Vietnam War protestors. It is also unbelievable.
I loved Point of Impact, the first Swagger book but I knew that I should treat it as standalone novel and not read any further books in the series. But unfortunately I was unable to resist. Point of Impact was published in 1993 and it had charm and humour. It dealt with Swagger a sniper and gun enthusiast taking help from fellow Marines and gun enthusiasts to take on right wing conspirators who believed in their cause, however cruel the things they might have to undertake. Politics was not a burning issue and though the media was made fun of, the attack was not totally vicious. But in this novel (the sixth in the series and published in December 2009) the hatred that had by then overwhelmed American politics becomes dominant.
Another difference between the two books is that in Point of Impact, Swagger was a sniper, pure and simple. In this book he is not only a sniper, he is also a quick draw artist, a man able to withstand torture as if he had been trained for it and so much else. The quality which made Swagger special in Point of Impact is lost and he is now just a standard thriller hero.

[SteVen Hendricks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review - Author Stephen Hunter’s “I, Sniper" takes place 10 years after the hit movie, “Shooter,” starring actor Mark Walhberg as a younger Bob Lee Swagger. In I, Sniper, Book 6 in the Bob Lee Swagger series, Swagger's expertise (nicely detailed in this story) is called upon by the FBI in their attempt to bring to justice what seems to be a serial ‘sniper’ killer. This was my first Stephen Hunter sniper read, other than watching the Shooter movie - based on the book “Point of Impact” - and I enjoyed the I, Sniper book just as much as the Bob Lee Swagger “Shooter” movie. Sniper novels are a special sub-category in the thriller genre and Hunter is a master of it. The storyline is ‘good vs evil’, with a traditional hero who is an expert with firearms. The technical details are accurate in this story as well as very informative. Also, the dialogue with a large number of characters in the story was understandable and it kept the plot moving at a nice and steady pace. This was a very good read. I especially liked how Hunter explained a lot of what it takes to be a sniper. And the fact that snipers save more lives than what they take. To the average reader, this book may seem to be more detailed than necessary. However to someone with a background of some kind in firearms or the military, be they a novice or expert operator, this detail is imperative. I, Sniper takes place in the world of snipers and spec ops operators. The high end equipment and the specifics of make, model, and spec, are of paramount importance and in many ways tell a story of their own. I love a good weaponry novel and this is definitely one of them. Hunter's telling of this story, and of the characters, couldn't be more adequately told without these specifics. It’s right there next to the importance of character development in a story. This military action thriller is another wonderful adventure in the varied life of sniper Bob Lee Swagger, USMC (Ret). Stephen Hunter has created a top-notch character as richly detailed and memorable as ‘Jack Reacher’ 'Jason Bourne' or 'James Bond'. I cannot recommend this book enough! Very entertaining!

[Terence M [on a brief semi-hiatus] · Rating 2 out of 5]

25.0% "Audiobook - 15:34 hours - Narrator: Buck Schirner"
50.0% "So far this book suffers from 'sniper verbosity' and I have had to push through the verbosity to remain attached to the story."
80.0% "A lot of turgid narrative in this book :( I want to finish this book!"
100.0% "I'm finished!"
I barely liked this book, barely, hence 2.0 stars but it should have been 1.5 stars.
At 15+ hours the book was waaay too long. Interminable drivel, incredibly detailed drivel, repetitive drivel about all types of rifles, about the ammunition, about how it could be used to kill a person, (duh), but only in the hands of super-heroes who had served in 'Nam, learned the multiple dreaded ways to kill and had practised these dark arts back home - sometimes illegally too! Yep, apparently the USA Gummint has used these super heroes to "sanction" some of its 'bad' citizens and guess what? Bob Lee was one of the Sanctioneers! But there were lots of the S-Heroes who turned Bad and worked for the Dark Side. Never mind, Ol' Bob Lee will get them and he ends up cleaning out many of them using the multiple skills only he seems to possess and practise, despite his sixty plus years of age.
And so on ... *Big Sigh*

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a shame that writer Hunter wastes most of this story with innocent murder and boring sniper trivia until the end. This is my least favorite because it’s much too long and tedious. While Hunter does manage to salvage the ending, it’s too late. 4 of 10 stars

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book to read. It had both a serious side as well as a tongue-in-cheek side to it. Granted, I would not recommend it for anybody with 'politically correct' leanings. I liked this one so much more than the last Bob Lee Swagger novel 'Night of Thunder.' This book was maybe twice the size of 'Night of Thunder' but it still took me about the same amount of time to read it.

Some of the characters were obviously based on real people [Jane Fonda, Ted Turner, and the hero of Gunny Sergeant Carlos Hathcock]. It was an interesting premise - the murder of four former 60s radicals and the subsequent suicide of the perp being a smokescreen for something else. Swagger is asked to come in and look over the evidence as an objective outsider to ensure the FBI's case is tight and completely error-free; Swagger obviously figures out there's more going on than what the FBI realizes and helps bring the criminals to justice [in one form or another].

The heroes are put through a ringer before they receive vindication. Some of it is clever; some of it is contrived. The author definitely came across as expressing his political views a bit more in this novel than he had his other Bob Lee novels. But that did not bother me as much as I am sure it will bother other readers. Part of that just comes with the territory of reading somebody else's work; at some point the author might just surprise you with how strongly he expresses a viewpoint in a book/story. I have read some left-leaning books that were more over-the-top than Mr. Hunter was in terms of expressing viewpoints in a fictional work.

I felt that overall it was a fairly fast-paced book. It held my attention. I was worried at first about how the retired Marine Gunny Sergeant was being portrayed in the beginning of the book [especially once I quickly realized who his fictional Marine sergeant was based on in 'real life'] but my fears proved unfounded. Some of the 'gun stuff' was over my head, but it was still fun to read. And as fast as science and technology is progressing these days, it would not surprise me to one day read about the iSniper911 [or some variant of it] being produced and used by the military to improve the fighting ability of the men and women in uniform.

I felt like there was an underlying vein of humor beneath the story. There seemed to be more inside jokes and tongue-in-cheek comments throughout that made the book more than just another entertaining thriller. I think one of the best lines in the book was when Swagger commented on how he didn't need to read the paper because he got his information from Fox News. Regardless if a person loves Fox News or hates Fox News, that was just plain funny. And then there was how Nick Memphis was handling his public crucifixion in the news - that was pretty funny/classic as well.

I felt that Hunter did a good job expressing the different view points of the characters in his book [even if a couple of comments seemed to lean towards beating up a straw-man argument]. Still, Mr. Hunter has over thirty years experience in the news media, so one would assume he has some idea of the bent of how events are portrayed in the news. I have always found it fun to read how different people are portrayed, especially if their viewpoints are [quite] radically different than the author's himself or herself.

I think one thing that Mr. Hunter did a great job of was expressing how hard it is once a mentality gets locked in that a situation happened in a certain way, that a person had to be thinking a certain way, to change that mentality. It happened with the FBI [they were locked on the dead Gunny Sergeant being the murderer] and it happened with the newspaper reporting wanting to tell such a great story it would catapult him to fame, glory, and riches that he got locked into a certain way of thinking in how he handled a situation.

It is not a 'deep book' filled with theological or philosophical musings. Neither is it meant to be read a such. It is a fun book to read that leans a bit more to the right than it does to the left than any of his other titles that I can remember. But, again, that does not really bother me too much considering some of the books I have read by left-leaning liberal authors who gladly create straw men to mercilessly pummel into nothingness in order to promote their own brand of whatever it is they are trying to promote.

If I were to just base it off of a comparison to 'Night of Thunder' than this book would definitely rate five stars as there would be no comparison at all between the two books. But I really enjoyed 'A Time to Hunt' as well as the first book in the series ['Point of Impact']; so when I compare it to those two books, I think four stars is a an appropriate reading. One other difference in this book was that he did not have a Vietnam backstory that tied in with the current storyline. So that was a nice change of pace [although I did not mind the backstories when the occurred in his first three Bob Lee Swagger novels].

At least I did not have to suspend my disbelief like I did in 'the 47th Samurai' where Swagger was able to defeat a master swordsmith in a duel involving Samurai swords. [of course, Clive Cussler did something similar with Dirk Pitt in 'Dragon'] That was a bit much [although it could happen in 'real life', I suppose - life is so filled with strange things happening and the underdog is able to overcome the odds to win at some contest]

[Tom Tischler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Marine sniper named Carl Hitchcock has a record of 93 kills and he is very proud of
this. He goes to gun shows and signs autographs and also has a few endorsements. It
suddenly turns out that another Marine has 97 kills but has never said anything because
he really doesn't care. But this bothers Carl. There are suddenly a few sniper type killings
and all the evidence points to Carl. He is arrested and manages to commit suicide. Special
agent Nick Memphis wants to cover all the bases so he asks his friend Bob Swagger a former
sniper to examine the evidence. Swagger doesn't believe that Carl would do this and he finds
evidence that he didn't do it but it isn't conclusive so Swagger does his usual and goes hunting.
This is book 6 in the Bob Swagger series from 2009. I didn't think that this is one of Stephen
Hunter's better ones. I thought that it was dragged out with a lot of statistics and not a lot
of action. I gave it a 3.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen Hunter is a very good writer. This is the 6th book in the Bobby Lee Swagger series that I have read. They keep on getting better. (A new reader to the series would enjoy this book as a standalone novel. Hunter sprinkles the backstory nicely throughout without an obvious story interlude.)

This is the story of murders of old Vietnam era anti-war activists. There’s a Jane Fonda and Ted Turner character. The FBI has got the wrong guy and Swagger’s out to prove it. As usual – and without overpowering the story – it’s full of technical information about guns. It is a very complex plot and there are a bunch of surprises.

Hunter still makes his old main character, Bob Lee Swagger, very interesting. He’s a good, smart man – yet hard. Swagger is a real hero. (Maybe I just like Swagger because he’s over 60 and is still an action hero.) While one of the ending scenarios is a bit melodramatic (improbable), it’s fiction – what would you expect.

It’s a great read. I recommend it.

[Sabrina S · Rating 3 out of 5]

NARRATOR NOT THAT GOOD.

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't so much a novel as a defense of gun culture in the United States, and a fantasy of retribution against those who have ever opposed gun culture in the U.S.

There seems to come a point in every technical/tactical fiction writer's career that he stops writing about what he's good at, and instead takes politics head-on - usually at great cost to their fiction. Tom Clancy went off the rails with "Debt of Honor," where he fantasized about killing off all of congress, the senate, the president, the Supreme Court justices and the senior military leaders with one single blow: a terrorist crashing a 747 into the Capitol Building during a swearing-in ceremony. The result is Clancy's fantasy government, a clear and present reaction to Clinton's Presidency in 1995.

"I, Sniper" is the 6th Bob Lee Swagger novel written by Stephen Hunter, and the 6th Swagger novel I've read. Up until now they've been fun action adventures, often times filled with great twists and turns, and always rooted in an extremely solid technical knowledge of guns and sniper craft. I have enjoyed the fact that Hunter ages his main character, giving him a greater sense of real-ness than the timeless, endless action series where the protagonist never gets older, and is always in his prime (cough. Jack Reacher. cough. cough.).

I, Sniper, however, is Hunter's personal vendetta against Jane Fonda, Ted Turner and the "liberal media." Hunter's hatred of the New York Times and his love of Fox News aren't just inferred, they are major plot points. To be clear, I don't care how an author votes or what he believes, until it starts to cost him the credibility of his story.

And this story has as many holes as Hunter fantasizes about putting in to Jane Fonda and Ted Turner. I might not have noticed the glaring errors in the tale until he got me to analyzing: who is he going after here, and why? And once I start analyzing a book, I can never go back to simply enjoying it.

It's a shame, because Swagger is a great character. And he deserves more than this love-letter to the NRA (which is a literal love letter to the NRA: at the end of the book Hunter cleverly names all of his favorite authors, editors and experts in the gun field as attendees at a funeral). But every character motivation, every move in this book can be measured through the lens of "how much does Stephen Hunter hate the liberal media" - and it takes the fun out of what might have been a good story. But now we'll never know.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fine read by me. This one has some tongue in cheek. There is a plane of satire on top of a fine thriller in classic form. Bob Lee Swagger gets engaged by his FBI friend in foiling nefarious plots, as usual because of his knowledge of sniper warfare. A Jane Fonda proxy gets bumped off by sniper along with other anti-war radical stars, and ex-husband (a Ted Turner type of self-made billionaire) throws his weight around to get it solved fast. That the evidence points to an ex-special forces sniper of great legend, now an apparent suicide, motivates Bob Lee to get to the bottom of it Hunter never works very hard to make various power masters look like buffoons or dangerously negligent, but this time around he target liberals, especially in the media. A "Woodstein" type of liberal journalist is made out to be overly gullible. He has another dark character espouse the concept that the media adjusts its portrayals to fit an overriding "narrative", which is unconscious and effectively "rules everything". As part of poking fun at the media, he has Swagger note that he doesn't need to read papers because he watches Fox News. Thus, we get a blend of high intensity thrilled with a bit of shenanigans which adds to the pleasure.

[Rajeev Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

... he felt a wave of peace and from that a confidence rocketing skyward as the palsy fell from his limbs and the pressure from his heart and he wound down in his mind until he was nothing but rifle.

Ex USMC Sniper Bob Lee Swagger is a great character, one of the last of his tribe, with a knack for wrapping things up with the muzzle of his gun. I, Sniper may have some of the most exhilarating action scenes I've ever read and a brilliant plot to drive the story forward but it has some issues. At times I am bedazzled by Stephen Hunter's prose and of course the level of detail about gun-craft and sniping that he brings to the table, but he seems to get carried away in places, turning it into a kind of instruction manual. It doesn't help that he has an obvious love for journalism (being a Pulitzer winner himself), so he makes the reader delve into the long drawn out thought processes of rogue scribes and scandal artists and how an elaborate smear campaign against a respected Special Agent of the FBI is woven and eventually pans out.

Still, I absolutely loved how Swagger gave it to the bad guys in the end. The Western brand of justice isn't dead.

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this novel better than the last one I read (Night of Thunder) which is the previous book in this series. Swagger in this is a bit too superhuman and built up for the first few chapters, I suppose to establish him, but the story then becomes more interesting and complex.

Along the way, there are some almost too accurate and believable stories of the press and corruption in government, pressure, and the way the media narrative presents information, and some less than believable bits about FBI behavior and assistance to what is basically a criminal rampaging across the nation. But in the end, it wraps up nicely and was a satisfying story with some flaws.

Mostly I'm giving it one more star than I would have because the book is a nice satisfying kick in the sweets to reporters, aging 60's radicals, and assorted hard left twits that are very thinly disguised in the book.

[Alan Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Bob Lee Swaggert winner

Four anti-war activists from the Vietnam era are murdered within a few days of each other. After a short investigation, it is clear that a disgruntled Marine sniper was present at all four shootings, and is one of the few people in the world with the skill to pull off the murders. Everyone is sure of his guilt.....except Swaggert....also a retired Marine snipper.

Battling bureaucracy, powerful political forces, and a deadly IRA team of former special ops guys, Swaggert pursues his own investigation, leaving behind a trail of bodies.

As alway, Hunter keeps the narrative taut, and the pages turning. Another excellent addition to the series.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Waaay too political. Takes you out of the story with long diatribes against the N.Y. Times with an unbelievably stupid and gullible reporter character.

[Siddharth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant as usual.
No one writes gun fights or cathartic face offs as well as Stephen Hunter.
The first half of the book sets up the plot but once Swagger figures out who the villain is, buckle up, because the hunt is on.
The rest is just gravy.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

SUBJECTIVE READER REVIEW WITH PLOT SPOILERS FOLLOWS:

I gotta admit, a book by Stephen Hunter titled 'I, Sniper' fooled the shit outa me, as I suspected we were gonna go back to the jungle in 'Nam. Nah, wrong guess, iSniper is actually the name of a cosmic new highly advanced, computerized sniper rifle scope! Surprised? Interestingly it can make all kind of adjustments for any ambient environmental factor and hit a smart phone from a mile away. Or a jaw, or a brain stem, or a heart...I think you're getting the gist. So why is a whole novel titled after a sniper scope? Because it was used to take out Jane Fonda's alter ego and three other '60's hippie royalty, but what of motive? Oh, Ted Turner's alter ego, one T. T. Constable, needed to take out a couple who were extorting him terribly, so he did by throwing in a couple of others--including his ex-wife--to confuse the issue. Then he set up a recently widowed, elderly Vietnam sniper of fame as the shooter who couldn't live with the Commie traitors getting away with their acts of treason. With the four Commie-lovers dead, Carl Hitchcock's kill count rose to 97, making him the champion US sniper of all time.

And he'd of gotten away with it if two of the perfect shots hadn't been fired through tempered, curved glass. A sniper can pretty much intuit most environmental effects to his shot, but not through curved glass. Nah, that was done by a machine, robo-sniper. Enter the Dragon, aka Bob Lee Swagger, and old Ted Turner might have just as well surrendered to the authorities, admitting that he shot and killed two armored truck guards in a Boston bank in 1971. But Ted thought since he owned a congressman, his power broker attorney all but an indentured servant and the blind support of Graywolf Global Security that he was bulletproof and invisible. Given the fact that his Graywolf team was composed of former British Special Air Service commando snipers, it was a slam dunk allusion of the grandest kind. Bob Lee don't take to commercial sniping; hell, he still has nightmares about killing innocent boys during wartime! But somebody was employing the sniper to further Tom Constable's bullshit objectives, so in his parlance, it was time to hunt.

He almost knew he'd get caught raiding Constable's Wyoming ranch, searching for some handheld object whose existence had cost four people their lives. He even expected to get roughed up when he did. But nobody, especially not Swagger, could have foreseen seven hours of water-boarding. The Graywolf team chief Anto Grogan demanded to know how Swagger had grown gills! But the mere fact that he had survived seven hours of water-boarding, completely exhausting the torture team, changed Anto's attitude towards Swagger--and Constable accordingly. The rattle of the film projector brought Swagger back to sanity as he watched a surveillance camera recording of the botched robbery of Nyackett Federal Bank & Trust in 1971. A long haired, bearded Tom Constable had appeared when things slid sideways and shot the two guards. The tape had been carefully hidden and never discussed until two of the sniper targets, Jack Strong & Mitzi Reilly, had been gifted it by a dying former hippie writer O. Z. Harris. They thought they had Constable by the short hairs, preparing to live life as millionaires as the deadly sniper rounds ended the fantasy.

But Swagger escaped the ranch security house, grabbed his hidden gun and knapsack, and fled into the Wyoming scrub brush. Of course the difference-maker was that he had backup, and then things turned to shit for Tom Constable.

When you commit to read a Stephen Hunter book you'd better strap yourself in tight. 'I, Sniper' ain't for the feint of heart, but I always thought Ted Turner was a gapped-tooth asshole, so the overall story of his fantasy decline was delightful. Read it and decide for yourself.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hunter, Stephen (2009). I, Sniper. New York: Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books.

There is something godlike about the sniper’s work: blowing off somebody’s head from a thousand yards. The victim simply disintegrates without warning and nobody around has any clue of what just happened. That’s a lot of fun, if you appreciate the fantasy.

This sniper is Bobby Lee Swagger, ex-mil, now in his sixties and retired. Apparently he has featured in a long series of sniper books by this author, but I haven't ready any of them. As is the custom in these kinds of stories, he is called out of retirement by an FBI buddy to look into the recent deaths of four civilians, all former anti-war activists in the ‘70’s. The deaths were all by high precision sniper fire. The FBI has their perp, they believe, a famous military sniper who “snapped,” went on a killing spree, then shot himself. The evidence is voluminous and convincing. But Swagger is concerned that the case is “too good,” and he’s skeptical.

He follows his nose, and as he gets closer to the truth, he is thwarted by evil billionaire, T. T. Constable, a thinly disguised Ted Turner, whose ex-wife, Joan Flanders was a seventies anti-war radical (get it?). It’s one damn thing after another, through 500 pages of adventure, until the world is made right again. Along the way, Swagger demonstrates the skills of the sniper, his knowledge of firearms and everything related to firearms, and eventually has to go up against a team of other snipers hired by Constable in a sniper shootout. I especially liked the detailed description of a new, computerized, easy to use rifle scope, the iSniper (from Apple?)

That’s the fun of the novel, the technical details and the sniper procedures, apparently (how would I know?) all carefully researched. The characters are thin caricatures, except for Swagger, who does have some depth, in a clichéd sort of way. He is tough, expert, smart, and “too old for this shit.” He chases the baddy to the ends of the earth to satisfy his personal, vigilante sense of justice. He is not well-educated, uses lots of double negatives and has trouble making subjects and verbs agree, although his grammatical affliction fades in and out as needed. Most of the time he is perfectly articulate. So characterization is slightly better than in most thrillers, but not great.

The writing is very visual (the author was formerly a well-known film critic), and that makes the narrative crisp, especially around the technical stuff:

“The 150-grain Sirocco would be banned in land warfare because of course the point that kept it so accurate was only black polycarbonate and meant for streamline and accuracy, but it hid a hollow point and a lethally blossoming design. When it struck flesh, the polycarbonate tip was driven back into the bullet body itself, and that dynamic intrusion, plus the self-destructing design of the bullet, caused the missile, traveling through flesh at about 2,500 feet per second, to open like a flower, its petals yawing wide... They went through meat like a butcher’s keenest blade, opening a temporary cavity on the power of velocity that was the size of a football” (p. 485).

That’s a fine description of a technical event. “Polycarbonate” is a nice word. The writing is skillful. The imagery is clear. On the other hand, this sort of thing does get tedious over the course of 500 pages, and I found myself skipping over long sections of narrative description. I’m not a gun nut, myself. But I respect the skill of the writer. If only he could have put his obvious talent into more believable plotting, more thoughtful characterization, more lyrical language, and especially, a lot more editing.

[Jyoti Dahiya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I confess that the main reason I picked up this book was the juxtaposition of 'Bob Lee Swagger' and 'FBI agent Nick Memphis' on the back cover. Yeah, a book I came to because I've seen a movie of an earlier book in what I rapidly realised is probably a long-running series. Who knew?

Bob Lee is an ex-marine sniper, arguably one of the best, a Vietnam War survivor on the American side, now getting old and creaky in the joints. His friend Nick Memphis gets hold of some great breaks in the latest political assassinations case, and zeroes in on the culprit in double-quick time. As the SWAT team goes in, Carl Hitchcock, also an ex-marine sniper, is found dead of self-inflicted gunshots. Memphis suspects something is wrong because no case can ever be so quick, so clean, and so wrapped up. He asks Swagger to take a look so that he doesn't end up with egg on his face some years down the line. Swagger finds nothing wrong in the case, except his conviction that Hitchcock was not guilty (yes, he has evidence of sorts for this).

And then, suddenly, the anomalies pop out of the camouflage, and the case becomes complex. Bob Lee, that typical American hero in the tradition of Westerns, the good guy with the guns, goes into bad guy land to prevent them getting away with perfect murders. (And yes, there is a shoot-out with sixguns in California.)

It's really weird to read a book from the conservative side of American politics. There are snide references about leftists, sneaky scenes against the media, even a comment by Swagger that he gets all his news from Fox! Yes, apparently, intelligent people, too, can watch Fox News (which is discredited even all the way round the world in India as an unreliable news source—that should tell you something). Combined with missing subject-verb agreements in his speech (his term for it), it's a bit of a peek into a different set of assumptions than most books from the USA. I guess the Right doesn't get as much space as the Left, so it has to work harder. But Hunter wears the mantle lightly, and never quite descends to rants. The poking fun is done with a light touch. Sample the first sentence in the book: “The time has long passed in American when one can say of a sixty-year-old woman that she is “still” beautiful, the snarky little modifier, all buzzy with irony, signifying some kind of miracle that one so elderly could be so attractive.” What's a bit more of a tripping point for me was the terrifying detail about all those guns, detail so matter-of-fact that it scared me at times. Surely the USA is weird in its worship of guns? I'm grateful that we don't have the equivalent of the NRA where I live!

So, is it very much in the macho style popularised by the Die Hard movies? I didn't quite get the same vibe in the movie Shooter. And the book makes Memphis and Swagger even more rounded characters. So, no. It's rooted with the conservatives, but these are not as much stock characters as the Die Hard or True Lies movies. Books win over movies, again.

Hmm, where can I find more Stephen Hunter books, particularly about Nick Memphis, whom I like more and more?

And, oh yeah, there's a pun in the book title.
[Review written in 2014, uploaded here now]

[Aisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Snipers wear diapers, apparently. That's the only noteworthy fact I learned from this book. It took me an abnormally long time to finish reading it. I saw this book at one of these really good bookshops and I was instantly captivated by the title embossed in spectacular red and the name Bob Lee Swagger. I had already seen that movie Shooter based on Swagger penned down by Mr. Hunter and had enjoyed it immensely. So, naturally I bought the book. And I must say that I'm terribly disappointed. I spent almost 5 months trying to finish this book. It was a miss by quite a lot of inches (speaking strictly in sniper measurements).
Throughout the first 350 pages almost, I just couldn't bring myself to find a corner and read the book. And when I did, I couldn't read for more than 10 pages. However, I slothed through the pages filled with sniper jargon and picked up some pace in the last 170. I was still slightly hopeful that the book might have a nice ending. But I found myself infuriated when Mr. Hunter was unable to explain the murder of Constable's wife and that comedian. Even the explanation for the murders of Jack Strong snd Mitzi Reilly was lame. Also, I found myself incapable to understand all the references to the rifles used but then again that's a matter of interest.
So yes, the book was a waste of my time and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody except those who enjoy pretentious thrillers devoid of any thrill. They sure meant us good when they advised us not to judge a book by its cover. Lesson learnt.

P.s. No offence to any Hunter fans out there. :) I did enjoy the prose, it was poetic.

[Derek Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's tough to rate this book. I put it down twice to never pick up again, but I still plowed my way through to the end... which is the only reason I give it two stars instead of one.

This was my first, and last, Stephen Hunter novel.

Generally speaking, the plot was good, but the writing was horrendous. The dialogue was over the top, unneeded, and forced. I know he did a lot of research, but seriously how much technical data does he have to give his audience? It felt so unnatural, by the time I hit the halfway point of the book, I started skimming, then skipping, paragraphs at the time. I honestly do not believe I missed out on anything. Trying not to give any spoilers, let me just say it was particularly bad from the guy who captures Swagger on the ranch.

Moreover, I did not care for the thinly veiled references to actual people, from Jane Fonda to Carlos Hathcock. Seriously, it's fiction. Either use the real people or make up new ones, but the horribly obvious caricatures were annoying.

As for the plot itself, there were some good twists, but Hunter leaves too many obvious clues. I caught much of his foreshadowing. There were also some situations that actually caused me to emote. However, those were too few and too far between to justify picking up any more Swagger novels because of the writing style alone.

[William Bentrim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I, Sniper by Stephen Hunter

Bob Lee Swagger a Vietnam Vet, an alcoholic, a sniper and a hunter battling PTSD is back. Bob is old now, and feels like he is out of the game. He is not! Being old myself, I found reassurance that an old guy can still kick some butt. Oddly enough, I am not nearly deluded enough to believe I could but Bob Lee Swagger certainly can.

This plot is centered around the defamation of a Marine Corp hero, a sniper. Bob Lee doesn’t buy into all the hype. Radicals from the 70s are being murdered by a sniper and the hero stand accused. Nick Damascus, FBI agent, is back in this book. He is still a stalwart friend of Swaggers.

The investigation includes very thinly disguised notables. So thinly disguised as to be amusing. The theme of Bob Lee Swagger opposing enormous and powerful adversaries with a small network of friends and otherworldly skills continues in this book.

As I have noted with past Hunter books, don’t plan to get a lot done once you start the book as you will not, I repeat, YOU WILL NOT WANT to put it down.

I highly recommend.

Web: http://www.stephenhunter.net/
This is not an official website.

[Jeffrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spoiler Alert

Stephen Hunter really knows guns, and the level of technical (and often tactical) verisimilitude one encounters when reading his novels is stunning. I really love this tendency in his books. I, Sniper is no exception(at least not technically), and the story is a pretty good yarn. BUT the final action scene is so annoying, as to ruin the rest of the book. The protagonist ends up in a classic movie-western fast-draw gunfight, but it gets even cheesier. He and his opponent are in western garb with western guns because the very real gunfight happens at a Cowboy Action Shooting competition. And it gets even worse: he pulls a Roy Rogers and shoots the gun out of his opponent's hand. This silliness just ruined the whole book for me.

Oh yeah, the characters that are thinly veiled personalities from real life are somewhat annoying also. And the water boarding scene is over the top too.

Still there are great gun details and the New York Times gets duped in a serious way. If a book has those two things going for it, it can't be all bad.

[Lphi123 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a good book. I was excited to read as I had just recently watched a couple of episodes of the TV series "The Shooter" based on Bob Lee Swagger the same character but not as in the book. In the book he is a Viet Nam era sniper-a great one at that- in the TV series he is a younger sniper out of the Middle East engagements and retired out. Regardless I give this author 4 stars on this book because of the following: he has a goo0d plot, he manifests the credo of the men who belong to that elite group. He researched his weapons. His plot has a great ending! Look out old western themes. This one kicked it out of the park via the modern thriller genre instead. No spoilers, just check for yourself if you like twists, the loyalty of brotherhood(even for the bad guys)' even gets the press 's back to the wall. Impossible right? WellStephen Hunter wrote a sub plot that I haven't come across before. Maybe you all might have. I was going to give it 4 stars but 4+ is more like it so upgraded to 5stars.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bob Lee Swagger is on a mission which means the bad guys best look out. Along with "partner" FBI Agent Nick Memphis Swagger solves a decades old bank robbery while clearing his former colleague from the Vietnam war Carl Hitchcock. Hitchcock is blamed for a series of sniper assassinations of four-long ago one time Vietnam war protestors. Naturally Bob gets a bee in his bonnet and leaves his wife and small daughter in Idaho to work with Memphis to untangle Hitchcock from these crimes. Packed with plenty of guns, shootouts, really nasty bad guys, and mayhem galore ! Too bad I cant give this one six or more stars. I was truly bummed after I finished the last 225 pages finishing up that I was done. On to the next installment in this wild and crazy series. A must must read in a must must read series. check it out.

[Bookreader1972 · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 stars. Wow, what a great Swagger novel. I read a large print library copy.
It seems from reading other reviews of this & previous Swagger books, you either really like Bob Lee Swagger or you don't. This is the 6th book, & it is better then the last one, Days of Thunder, as it is almost pure sniper action.
I very, very rarely give 5 stars but this is so much better then just 4 stars, & I still am not allowed to give quarter increment stars. The only reason for the 1/4 star deduction is some of the minor characters, while important to the story, get superfluously long descriptive sections. I found myself skipping paragraphs. Sorry Mr. Hunter, that a 1/4 star deduction.
Please, Stephen Hunter, sir, don't stop writing Swagger novels.