Introduction

Stephen Hunter is a Pulitzer-prize winning newspaperman who recently retired from reviewing movies for the Washington Post. In his spare time over the past few decades, he has written some of the greatest and most under-sung novels in American literature.

It was these novels that first drew my attention to Hunter more than ten years ago, but when I searched the Internet to learn what I could about him, there wasn't much there. And what was there was scattered hither and yon, through dozens of different web locations.

I was just learning to create websites back then, and Hunter seemed like an interesting topic. So I put this site together (in considerably more primitive form than you see). Eventually, the attention I garnered included an occasional note from Stephen Hunter himself, and we finally met over dinner on one of his west coast stops for the Havana book tour in 2003.

At the end of the decade, Hunter's star continues rising. His latest novel, I, Sniper, has garnered the legendary "grand slam" of fiction - rave, pre-release reviews from all four major reviewers in America (Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus and Library Journal). My personal favorite of his novels, Point of Impact, was made into the movie Shooter, grossing over $150-million for its producers. In the ten years between creating Bob Lee Swagger and the character's debut on the silver screen, Hunter wrote a series of awesome novels featuring Bob Lee's father, Earl, fighting in World War Two and beyond. Since Shooter, Hunter has brought back Bob Lee in "47th Samurai" and "Night of Thunder" - with the third "new" Bob Lee Swagger novel, "I, Sniper" due to hit bookshelves at the end of 2009.

I, Sniper: New book at the end of the year

Four famed '60s radicals are gunned down at long range by a demented sniper. The victims include the movie-star ex-wife of media mogul T.T. Constable and a former star couple, now living as academics in Chicago. Under enormous pressure, the FBI quickly concludes that the shooter has to be the Marine war hero Carl Hitchcock, whose 93 kills were thought for a time to lead the bodycount tally among American marksman in Vietnam.

But as the Bureau, led by Special Agent Nick Memphis, head of Task Force Sniper, close in, Hitchcock commits suicide, having reclaimed the title of leading life-taker. Closing out the investigation, Nick discovers a case made in heaven: everything fits, from timeline to ballistics to forensics to motive, means and opportunity. But Nick thinks maybe it's a little too good.

He asks his friend, the retired Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger, to check the data. And thus, reluctantly, the old shooter begins to re-evaluate what the other investigators have assembled, calling on a lifetime of firefights as well as a special, intuitive gift for understanding the dynamics of close quarters combat. Swagger knows what goes down when the lead is in the air, how humans do and don't behave, what the limits are, how well or how poorly men shoot for blood.

Using a skillset no man on earth posses except himself, he soon uncovers unseen anomolies, implausible causalities, misleading interpretations and gradually begins to unpeel a sophisticated conspiracy which would require the highest warcraft of the most superb special operations professionals. His discoveries propel him forward, even when the Bureau itself is unsure. And at the same time, extraordinary pressures are applied to Nick to declare the case closed, so the four martyrs to peace can be laid to rest with dignity, without vulgar, sensationalistic exploiters raking in money on the tragedy. The two narratives play off each other: Bob penetrates the deepest secrets of the sniper world and its new technology, while Nick tries to stand firm in his quest for the truth even as his own agency turns against him in a national capital sick with intrigue and treachery and hardball PR initiatives, and an enflamed media calls for his discharge.

Soon enough, the conflicts cease to be intellectual and turn mortal. The closer Swagger gets, the more interested parties wish to see him stopped. Lead flies, and Hunter's reputation as one of the finest writers of action is displayed in a series of set-piece encounters with heavily armed men who make the mistake of thinking they are hunting Bob, when he is hunting them.

"I, Sniper" will satisfy Hunter's thousands of fans and win him thousands of new ones, as it combines brilliant plotting, vivid characters, razor-sharp dialogue and extraordinary gunfights. And when Bob and the last of his antagonists finally face each other in a venue both unanticipated and yet completely appropriate, re-enacting a classic ritual of arms, readers will realize that in certain circumstances, there's nothing more necessary than a good man with a gun and the guts to use it hard and well.

What you'll find on this website

The News section has instances of Hunter or his books in recent media.

Hunter Highlights offers some of Hunter's writings you may not have seen before.

You can suggest a Frequently Asked Question through the email form at the lower left corner of any page.

Interviews gathers some interviews with Hunter from around the web.

The section titled "Comments on Hunter's Novels" is based on Wordpress, and allows unlimited conversation between us fans. In order to leave a message, you will have to register first. This allows me to easily squash spam before it happens. (Thanks to you frequent visitors who stoically discussed Hunter's books through the erectile disfunction and porn ads on my earlier Postnuke-based bulletin board).

Enjoy, and don't be shy with feedback, especially if you have some ideas for improvement.