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 first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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