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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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