Yes, you're seeing that right. I'm giving this book 5 big stars. This is unabashed brain candy. This is a mental big mac with a large side of fries, an extra large Coke and the meal includes your favorite pie smothered in ice cream. This is the sixth Bob Lee Swagger novel and it's my favorite so far. This one goes back to the roots of the Bob Lee story, back to the Sniper story. The book has a cast of characters "who are completely fictional and if they bear any resemblance to any actual person

A few good quotes: 1. "The time has long passed in America when one can say of a sixty-eight-year-old woman that she is 'still' beautiful, the snarky little modifier, all buzzy with irony, signifying some kind of miracle that one so elderly could be so attractive." 2. Again writing about old age: "the realization there were a lot more leaves on the ground than on the trees." 3. "The head is a vault, a treasure chest, a reliquary, the container of all our sacraments, of all that makes us human."

This was a fun book to read. It had both a serious side as well as a tongue-in-cheek side to it. Granted, I would not recommend it for anybody with 'politically correct' leanings. I liked this one so much more than the last Bob Lee Swagger novel 'Night of Thunder.' This book was maybe twice the size of 'Night of Thunder' but it still took me about the same amount of time to read it.Some of the characters were obviously based on real people [Jane Fonda, Ted Turner, and the hero of Gunny Sergeant

Okay, I confess that the main reason I picked up this book was the juxtaposition of 'Bob Lee Swagger' and 'FBI agent Nick Memphis' on the back cover. Yeah, a book I came to because I've seen a movie of an earlier book in what I rapidly realised is probably a long-running series. Who knew?Bob Lee is an ex-marine sniper, arguably one of the best, a Vietnam War survivor on the American side, now getting old and creaky in the joints. His friend Nick Memphis gets hold of some great breaks in the late...

Another Bob Lee Swaggert winnerFour anti-war activists from the Vietnam era are murdered within a few days of each other. After a short investigation, it is clear that a disgruntled Marine sniper was present at all four shootings, and is one of the few people in the world with the skill to pull off the murders. Everyone is sure of his guilt.....except Swaggert....also a retired Marine snipper.Battling bureaucracy, powerful political forces, and a deadly IRA team of former special ops guys, Swagg...

An unquestionable improvement over the head-scratchingly bizarre detours into martial arts and, of all fucking things, NASCAR, but not the full-bore return to action-thriller glory I was hoping for. Honestly, if it had been any other author I probably wouldn’t have kept going after those two but I know Hunter can write the shit out of some really, really great action thrillers with tons of personality and great writing (Point of Impact, Dirty White Boys, Time to Hunt, and Pale Horse Coming are a...

If you really hate the New York Times, this book is for you. Otherwise, stay away.The plot opens with four famous anti-Vietnam war protestors being killed by a sniper. By the time the FBI identifies him as a famous Marine sniper from that era, he has committed suicide. Bob Lee Swagger, a famous Marine sniper himself is called in as a consultant by his FBI friend Nick Memphis to make sure the FBI got it right. Swagger soon realises that actually the whole thing is a setup.After this promising beg...

This isn't so much a novel as a defense of gun culture in the United States, and a fantasy of retribution against those who have ever opposed gun culture in the U.S.There seems to come a point in every technical/tactical fiction writer's career that he stops writing about what he's good at, and instead takes politics head-on - usually at great cost to their fiction. Tom Clancy went off the rails with "Debt of Honor," where he fantasized about killing off all of congress, the senate, the presiden...

SUBJECTIVE READER REVIEW WITH PLOT SPOILERS FOLLOWS: I gotta admit, a book by Stephen Hunter titled 'I, Sniper' fooled the shit outa me, as I suspected we were gonna go back to the jungle in 'Nam. Nah, wrong guess, iSniper is actually the name of a cosmic new highly advanced, computerized sniper rifle scope! Surprised? Interestingly it can make all kind of adjustments for any ambient environmental factor and hit a smart phone from a mile away. Or a jaw, or a brain stem, or a heart...I think you'...

... he felt a wave of peace and from that a confidence rocketing skyward as the palsy fell from his limbs and the pressure from his heart and he wound down in his mind until he was nothing but rifle.Ex USMC Sniper Bob Lee Swagger is a great character, one of the last of his tribe, with a knack for wrapping things up with the muzzle of his gun. I, Sniper may have some of the most exhilarating action scenes I've ever read and a brilliant plot to drive the story forward but it has some issues. At t...

I enjoyed this novel better than the last one I read (Night of Thunder) which is the previous book in this series. Swagger in this is a bit too superhuman and built up for the first few chapters, I suppose to establish him, but the story then becomes more interesting and complex. Along the way, there are some almost too accurate and believable stories of the press and corruption in government, pressure, and the way the media narrative presents information, and some less than believable bits abou...

Waaay too political. Takes you out of the story with long diatribes against the N.Y. Times with an unbelievably stupid and gullible reporter character.

Hunter, Stephen (2009). I, Sniper. New York: Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books.There is something godlike about the sniper’s work: blowing off somebody’s head from a thousand yards. The victim simply disintegrates without warning and nobody around has any clue of what just happened. That’s a lot of fun, if you appreciate the fantasy. This sniper is Bobby Lee Swagger, ex-mil, now in his sixties and retired. Apparently he has featured in a long series of sniper books by this author, but I haven't read...

I, Sniper gets a massive 5 Stars for excellence in the explanation of scientific principles of shooting things/people from long ranges and the detailed technical world of guns and ammo. Also for the deep dive into the gun culture and the mind of someone dedicated to long range killing. After all this is a book about a sniper. Actually about a bunch of snipers. Hunter knows a lot about this specialized military skill set.I didn’t think you could actually write a book so closely aligned to real pe...

Book Review - Author Stephen Hunter’s “I, Sniper" takes place 10 years after the hit movie, “Shooter,” starring actor Mark Walhberg as a younger Bob Lee Swagger. In I, Sniper, Book 6 in the Bob Lee Swagger series, Swagger's expertise (nicely detailed in this story) is called upon by the FBI in their attempt to bring to justice what seems to be a serial ‘sniper’ killer. This was my first Stephen Hunter sniper read, other than watching the Shooter movie - based on the book “Point of Impact” - and

25.0% "Audiobook - 15:34 hours - Narrator: Buck Schirner" 50.0% "So far this book suffers from 'sniper verbosity' and I have had to push through the verbosity to remain attached to the story." 80.0% "A lot of turgid narrative in this book :( I want to finish this book!" 100.0% "I'm finished!"I barely liked this book, barely, hence 2.0 stars but it should have been 1.5 stars.At 15+ hours the book was waaay too long. Interminable drivel, incredibly detailed drivel, repetitive drivel about all type...

It’s a shame that writer Hunter wastes most of this story with innocent murder and boring sniper trivia until the end. This is my least favorite because it’s much too long and tedious. While Hunter does manage to salvage the ending, it’s too late. 4 of 10 stars

A Marine sniper named Carl Hitchcock has a record of 93 kills and he is very proud of this. He goes to gun shows and signs autographs and also has a few endorsements. Itsuddenly turns out that another Marine has 97 kills but has never said anything because he really doesn't care. But this bothers Carl. There are suddenly a few sniper type killingsand all the evidence points to Carl. He is arrested and manages to commit suicide. Specialagent Nick Memphis wants to cover all the bases so he asks hi...

Stephen Hunter is a very good writer. This is the 6th book in the Bobby Lee Swagger series that I have read. They keep on getting better. (A new reader to the series would enjoy this book as a standalone novel. Hunter sprinkles the backstory nicely throughout without an obvious story interlude.)This is the story of murders of old Vietnam era anti-war activists. There’s a Jane Fonda and Ted Turner character. The FBI has got the wrong guy and Swagger’s out to prove it. As usual – and without overp...

Fine read by me. This one has some tongue in cheek. There is a plane of satire on top of a fine thriller in classic form. Bob Lee Swagger gets engaged by his FBI friend in foiling nefarious plots, as usual because of his knowledge of sniper warfare. A Jane Fonda proxy gets bumped off by sniper along with other anti-war radical stars, and ex-husband (a Ted Turner type of self-made billionaire) throws his weight around to get it solved fast. That the evidence points to an ex-special forces sniper