by Stephen Hunter
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Product Description
He is the most dangerous man alive. He only wants to live in peace with his family, and forget the war that nearly killed him...
It's not going to happen.
Stephen Hunter's epic national bestsellers, Point of Impact and Black Light, introduced millions of readers to Bob Lee Swagger, called "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 himself received a grievous wound. Years later Swagger married 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 shooter, one of the world's greatest marksmen, peers through a telescopic sight at the three approaching figures.
Out of his tortured past, a mortal enemy has once again found Bob the Nailer. Time to Hunt proves anew why so many consider Stephen Hunter to be our best living thriller writer. 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, Hunter delivers all the complex, stay-up-all-night action his fans demand in a masterful tale of family heartbreak and international intrigue--and shows why, for Bob Lee Swagger, it's once again time to hunt.
From the Hardcover edition.
Amazon.com
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
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 The HALO of the HERO was more than a stretch!, 2008-08-02
I read this book after having read Point of Impact twice as well as Dirty White Boys. So, I finally got the story of the famous one man who stopped a battalion of VC in "the Nam" and how ole Donny came to be lost the day before his "DEROS".
I found this book entertaining. Like other Hunter books he seems to know what he is talking about regarding firearms esp long range accurized center fire rifles. He either did very good research or has some experience. This is in stark contrast to a famous murder mystery novelist I read who has a main good guy " flicking off the safety on her Glock ". 'course, them Glocks don't have a safety to flick off.
However, toward the end of this novel it goes fantasy on the reader. Ole Bob Swagger may be good but he is portrayed as a fifty year old who has the strength and agility of a 20 year old and the powers of a superhero when needed. I mean....his first jump is a HALO from the stratosphere into the mountains fully loaded for bear?
He's no mountaineer either ( I am ) and can tell you that you don't roll down boulder filled scree slopes days after surgery and survive. 'course ole Bob is superhuman in this novel. It was seriously disappointing the way the novel was brought to a conclusion and is the reason I will not buy or read further Swagger novels. Reading reviews of 47th Samuri indicate to me that Hunter took up where he left off in this novel making old Bob the nailer more like Clark Kent in disguise.
But still it was a good read...just not on the mark as believable. I found dozens of outright statements about how the Vietnam was was foolish, stupid, and destroyed a generation. This is really an anti war , that is anti Vietnam War , novel in clear relief.OK.....can't say that I disagree. Old soft men sending young strong men to their deaths for absolutely precisely nothing.
So if you want to read a novel about unbelievable , not even marginally believable, exploits of all kinds then this is a good choice. I mean, thousand yard shots in a blizzard, up or downhill, with a rifle you did not sight in , while injured and under fire...etc etc......
There is , in fact, a real zen factor in long range rifle shooting. you have to be in the zone. However, when that zone takes the shooter into superhuman territory more akin to watching bullets go by like in the Matrix? Read the book as an entertaining fantasy action adventure and you will be much more satisfied.
ps. Master Sniper, a good book imo, employs an ending that requires a pinpoint parachute drop in the mountains too.....except that this was without gps and all the other techno junk that Hunter uses in Time to Hunt to justify the unbelievable HALO of his HERO. Still, a good read just a bit flaky in pulling a magic ending out of the hat etc.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Time To Admire a Storyteller, 2008-07-03
I was given this book in August of 2007 on a trip to Idaho. I sat and read most of it in a house among the alfalfa growing on the western flank of the Tetons. What a view. What a book. Since then, I have read 4 additional Hunter books [including the first three in the Bob Lee Swagger series - - Point of Impact, Dirty White Boys, and Black Light. Hunter weaves a story like few others can. The details, the visualizations, the retrospectives... very well done. I just love his work.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Quality Book, 2008-04-15
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This is a very exciting book and was extremely addictive. I have not read a fiction book in over 5 years, this was the first, and I read it in less than 2 days. I'm a shooter and it's great to read a book from someone who was a shooter/reloader.
I now plan to read every Bob Lee Swagger novel.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
I've read it at least 3 times!, 2008-04-09
You can't put it down..then you reread it. I cried when Danny died. There isn't any character like like Bob Lee and especially in this book. I think he based Bob Lee on
Carlos Hathcock I could be wrong. Just read it and love it. Thank God for Stephen Hunter.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Now I know., 2008-01-23
What I liked about time to hunt was it tied alot of things up from point of impact. Like who Donny was, what happened in Vietnam, and what happened to the Russian Sniper that shot Bob and why. It is a very good plot and a excellent read. If you have read any Bob Swagger books this is one of the best.
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