Starred review from October 25, 2021
In bestseller Hunter’s superb 12th Bob Lee Swagger novel, a determined New York Times reporter wants to interview Bob, who’s 74, about his part in recently bringing down a bad guy known as Juba the Sniper in 2019’s Game of Snipers. Bob, who’s recovering from a bullet wound in his upper body, declines, but after the reporter publishes an article describing Bob’s role, Bob is subpoenaed to testify before a House subcommittee. A confrontational congresswoman, who’s facing a tough upcoming election campaign, leads the hearing, which is held in a Boise, Idaho, high school auditorium near Bob’s home for his convenience. Bob holds his own at the hearing, but eventually the committee charges him with “wanton endangerment” for his behavior during the confrontation with Juba the Sniper. In a battle where “words are bullets,” he’s on the ropes, until a prison bus commandeered by five escaped inmates crashes through the wall of the auditorium and mayhem ensues. The suspense rises as Bob must try to save the lives of the very people accusing him of wrongdoing. With this inventive nail-biter, Hunter sets a new bar for both himself and the genre. Agent: Esther Newberg, Curtis Brown.
December 1, 2021
Trouble finds retired sniper Bob Lee Swagger in this rip-roaring, blood-spilling, right-wing rant. The opening feels like a zombie novel, portraying northern New Jersey as a "slough of despond" with "three-foot-long bull crickets," the fragrance of "large, dead Italians," and a landscape with "a wondrous satanic cast." (Ha ha. Take that, Garden State!) Bad guys hijack a truck and leave corpses behind, but they fail to kill the warrior elite hero named Delta. Meanwhile in Idaho, the septuagenarian Bob Lee Swagger mends in peace from a near-fatal wound until bad news arrives: Congress will hold a hearing in Boise into whether retired Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Swagger had used unauthorized ammo in taking out Juba the Sniper. "Policemen must be prepared to retreat rather than return fire," one pol pontificates. Apparently, some candy-ass congressmen hate guns and killing and stuff, and they want to find a way to bring down Swagger, the great American hero. "Even heroes have to be held accountable for their decisions," a senator says. The cartoonish Congresswoman Charlotte Venable hates Swagger, the president's favorite sniper. The author takes plenty of cheap, lib-owning political shots, as when Delta likens his situation to bathing in pain, breathing sulfur fumes, and listening to the wisdom of Stephen Colbert in stereo. A New York Times reporter has a mouth that looks like a vagina and is "your basic child-molester type of anonymous wretch." The poor guy's hair "fell like shit from a flock of diarrhetic geese." Another reporter is a "CNN haircut eunuch." The aforementioned crims storm the hearing, planning to take eight congressmen hostage. (It must take place in Idaho because who would ever attack the U.S. Capitol?) Bloody mayhem ensues, with an ingenious sequence involving a wheelchair that does Swagger proud. A neat subplot reaches back to the American Revolution and asks whether he is destined by his DNA to be a natural-born killer. Politics aside, were that possible, Swagger's adventures are escapist fun. Just watch out when the geezer turns 80! There's a dumpster's worth of action and attitude here.
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January 1, 2022
Legendary sniper Bob Lee Swagger wanted no part of tracking Jihadi terrorist Juba (Game of Snipers, 2019), but he was dragged in anyway, ultimately killing Juba, preventing an assassination, and sustaining a serious bullet wound. Now he faces another formidable adversary: the U.S. government. A ranking house official, Charlotte Venable, leads a committee investigating Swagger for "reckless endangerment" in Juba's shooting, leaving Bob Lee caught between ruthless politicians on the right and left, both determined to use him as a symbol. Summoned to testify in an Idaho auditorium near his home rather than in Washington, D.C., a nod to his continuing recovery from his injuries, Swagger argues his case but refuses to apologize. That doesn't play well with the committee, but suddenly everything changes: Chechen mobsters, in a daring escape from federal prison, take committee members, reporters, and others, including Swagger, hostage, threatening to kill them all if their demands aren't met. The echoes of January 6 are unavoidable here, but Hunter brings complexity both to the issues and the characters. (The bond that develops between Swagger, and his accuser, Venable, is one of the novel's highlights.) Above all, though, this is a thriller, and Hunter writes action scenes as well as anyone in the genre; yes, there is plenty of cordite, but there's also tremendous suspense and a great sense of dramatic timing.
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