After a literally explosive opening where sniper fire cuts through the chest of an unnamed victim (Swagger?), readers of Time to Hunt are plunged into the final years of the Vietnam War and the struggles of Marine Donny Fenn. Stationed in Washington, D.C., after recovering from a nearly mortal wound, Fenn is asked to spy on Marines who may have ties to the peace movement. What Donny quickly learns, however, is that his Navy superiors are more interested in framing somebody than they are in finding the truth. In this first section, readers waiting to discover the outcome of the assassination and glimpse Bob "The Nailer" Swagger will instead be swept away by Hunter's vivid painting of the divided loyalties and torn identities that plagued soldiers and citizens in the early 1970s.

But all of this action is only a prelude to Donny's subsequent relationship with Swagger in Vietnam. Hunter fleshes out the mythology that he began to create in Point of Impact as readers watch Swagger add to his famed body count and confront his nemesis, Solaratov. Hunter moves deftly from the mind of Solaratov to Donny and back to Swagger, and in each character finds the core of the Vietnam experience--fear, coldness, sadness, horror, elation.

The last two sections cut to contemporary events and find Swagger married to Donny's former love, Julie. Slowly, the events of the first half of the book begin to merge with Swagger's present history and stories that readers will recognize from Hunter's earlier novels. Swagger uncovers a deep connection between the Vietnam demonstrations of the 1970s, the predatory work of the CIA, and the killer who is after him and his family now. Nothing is as it first seems, and readers of Point of Impact and Black Light will have to revise all their expectations. --Patrick O'Kelley


From Library Journal
When a sniper shoots a man in the mountains of Idaho and wounds the woman who is with him, it is not an isolated incident but the deliberate culmination of events that began during the Vietnam War. Bob Lee Swagger, who was a Marine sniper in Vietnam known as "Bob for the Nailer" for his lethal shooting, at first believes that he was the gunman's intended target. The wounded woman is his wife and the widow of his wartime comrade, Donny Fenn. Donny had been killed by a Russian sniper assigned the task of neutralizing Bob, or so Bob had always believed. But now it seems possible that Donny might have been the main target all those years ago and that it is Donny's widow that the sniper has come to kill, not Bob. Both a gripping war novel and a complex thriller coiled around the convoluted intrigues of the supposedly concluded Cold War, this is page-turning entertainment that will delight action adventure readers.?Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, MACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The Washington Post Book World, William Heffernan
Time to Hunt is edge-of-the-seat reading, but it is a step above Point of Impact and Black Light, his previous "Bob the Nailer" efforts. It is a well-plotted thriller, infused with enough lyrical prose and insightful musings about the human condition to make it worth the time of even less adventure-prone readers.


From AudioFile
Bob Lee Swagger is back again in Stephen Hunter's latest action-packed audiobook. Forever on the run, Swagger encounters a plot to kill him that involves the killing fields of Cambodia and modern-day political intrigue in Washington, D.C. Beau Bridges's distinct baritone suits this hard-edged thriller. He plays "Bob the Nailer" with a combination of qualities, as well as a cool master marksman who must defend himself and his family from an enemy who has been stalking him since the Vietnam War. Bridges's performance is highlighted by the powerful background music and the exquisite detail of Hunter's exciting text. R.A.P. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
Bob Lee Swagger, master sniper, returns (Black Light, 1996; Point of Impact, 1993), which means testosterone at the boil, gore galore, and filled-up body bags row on row. A super-sniper (not the illustrious Swagger but his nemesis Solaratov) shakes off the Arizona morning chill, hunkers over (for those who care) a ``Remington 700, with H-S Precision fiberglass stock and Leupold 10X scope,'' and seconds later a ``man's chest explodes'' (snipers in this novel miss maybe once a decade). Flash back, then, to 1965. The war in Vietnam is winding down and, tragically, a young marine, Swagger's partner, is blown away the day before he would have finished his tour. Are the two super-sniper incidents connected? Though for years Swagger has believed that the bullet that killed his friend was meant for him, events in the present prove him wrong. Unwillingly, then, he has to face the terrible fact that the death of his friend in 1965 was just the first act in a violent melodrama that now threatens his wife who was once married to his long-dead comrade. The answer behind the decades-old conspiracy is as convoluted as it is nefarious, involving chicanery in the corridors of power. Swagger, however, has little time to fritter away on inductive reasoning, since it's time to hunt for that enemy sniper and take him out before harm can come to the innocent and helpless. ``You're a sacred killer,'' an admirer tells Swagger. ``Every society needs one.'' Whether that's true or not, the stage is set for a grim denouement, and Swagger drops from a helicopter--demigod ex machina--to frustrate evil. Hunter's prose doesn't get much above pedestrian, and the dialogue is particularly weak. But Swagger in battle--brandishing his wondrous rifle, Excalibur with a trigger--will hold most and enthrall some. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Stephen Hunter is in a class by himself.  Time to Hunt is as vivid and haunting as a moving target in the crosshairs of a sniper scope."
--Nelson Demille, author of Mayday

"Stephen Hunter is simply the best writer of action fiction in the world and Time to Hunt proves it."
--Phillip Margolin, author of The Burning Man

"The best straight-up thriller writer at work today."


"Thrilling in the manner of ancient storytellers, with battles fierce enough for a war and characters crazy enough to fight them to the death."



From the Hardcover edition.


Review
"Stephen Hunter is in a class by himself.  Time to Hunt is as vivid and haunting as a moving target in the crosshairs of a sniper scope."
--Nelson Demille, author of Mayday

"Stephen Hunter is simply the best writer of action fiction in the world and Time to Hunt proves it."
--Phillip Margolin, author of The Burning Man

"The best straight-up thriller writer at work today."


"Thrilling in the manner of ancient storytellers, with battles fierce enough for a war and characters crazy enough to fight them to the death."



From the Hardcover edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

He's the most dangerous man alive. He only wants to live in peace with his family. It's not going to happen.

Stephen Hunter's epic national bestsellers, Point of Impact and Black Light, introduced millions to Bob Lee Swagger, aka "Bob the Nailer," a heroic but flawed Vietnam War veteran forced twice to use his skills as a master sniper to defend his life and his honor. Now, in his grandest, most intensely thrilling adventure yet, Bob the Nailer must face his deadliest foe from Vietnam—and his own demons—to save his wife and daughter.

During the latter days of the Vietnam War, deep in-country, a young idealistic Marine named Donny Fenn was cut down by a sniper's bullet as he set out on patrol with Swagger, who had always assumed the bullet was meant for him. Years later, Swagger marries Donny's widow Julie, and together they raise their daughter Nikki on a ranch in the isolated Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. Although he struggles with the painful legacy of Vietnam, Swagger's greatest wish, to leave his violent past behind and live quietly with his family, seems to have come true.

Then one idyllic day, a man, a woman and a girl set out from the ranch on horseback. High on a ridge above a mountain pass, a thousand yards distant, a calm, cold-eyed man, one of the world's greatest marksmen, peers through a telescopic site at the three approaching figures. Out of his tortured past, a mortal enemy has once again found Bob the Nailer.

With a plot that sweeps from the killing fields of Vietnam to the corridors of power in Washington, to the shadowy plots of the new world order, Stephen Hunter delivers all the complex action hisfans demand in a masterful tale of family heartbreak and international intrigue.

FROM THE CRITICS

Esquire

A head rush of a thriller.

Dallas Morning News

Thrillerdom's equivalent of From Here to Eternity...an utterly irresistible saga.

Chicago Tribune

Some of the fiercest and most compelling fiction on the shelves...Hunter is a master at creating large, sweeping plots.

Houston Chronicle

Hunter is a superb writer...Time to Hunt is one of his best.

Library Journal

When a sniper shoots a man in the mountains of Idaho and wounds the woman who is with him, it is not an isolated incident but the deliberate culmination of events that began during the Vietnam War. Bob Lee Swagger, who was a Marine sniper in Vietnam known as "Bob for the Nailer" for his lethal shooting, at first believes that he was the gunman's intended target. The wounded woman is his wife and the widow of his wartime comrade, Donny Fenn. Donny had been killed by a Russian sniper assigned the task of neutralizing Bob, or so Bob had always believed. But now it seems possible that Donny might have been the main target all those years ago and that it is Donny's widow that the sniper has come to kill, not Bob. Both a gripping war novel and a complex thriller coiled around the convoluted intrigues of the supposedly concluded Cold War, this is page-turning entertainment that will delight action adventure readers. -- Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, MA Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

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