"Pale Horse Coming" is Stephen Hunter's finest hour. While he is an excellent author who never fails to entertain, most of his other work pales in comparison to this masterpiece which is essentially a retelling of "The Magnificent Seven" filtered through Hunter's mega-macho and gun-centric writing techniques. In a Stephen Hunter novel, justice almost always comes from the barrel of the gun; in this case, it comes from the barrels of multiple guns as Earl Swagger rounds up a bunch of fellow bulle...

As much as I love stories about Bob Lee Swagger, I gotta admit, his father kicks even better ass and he is old school. A great series and I think this one is my favorite of all the Earl books. I love the time period and the characters.

Excellent book!! Best Stephen hunter book I've read yet

Mythic and elegant and poetical in language, though deadly earnest in its violence and means of dealing with violence, this book just touched me on all kinds of levels more than just the "thriller". It seamlessly blends the myths of the Deep Dark South with that of the cowboy and fast shooters of the West, and I loved how, underlying it all was the root-stock of Oedipus' third play -- Seven Against Thebes, the same stock that upheld "The Magnificent Seven" and "Seven Samurai".It's odd to read th...

This is a very violent book. Part of the violence is to right an injustice where, in the Mississippi of 1951, there is a horrible prison for black men called Thebes State Penal Farm, located in the swamps, almost impossible to reach, except by water. A lawyer friend of Earl Swagger goes there to get some information for a client, and Earl bails him out of trouble, but then can't forget the awful conditions, and rounds up six more gunfighters to go back to Thebes, set the prisoners free, and tear...

Believable? Maybe.I found myself changing my mind about duty to country without question. You would like to think you could support anything your country does (as in the best interest of the country), but this makes you rethink that.The "mission" of the government meant that everything else was being overlooked. This book showed just what evil can come out when men are being protected from their acts.

Just fabulous! 10 of 10 stars

This has got to be one of my favorite Stephen Hunter books as well as one of my favorite reads. I am a sucker for the old "Magnificent Seven" set-up - which Stephen Hunter uses in this novel with amazing ease. Definitely will raise your testosterone level after a single reading. You will begin to smell funny and thump on your chest at unexpected moments. I recommend this for anyone who wants to read a good old-fashioned no-nonsense shoot-em-up. There is enough in here to please a fan of action,

Soooooo homoerotic.Soooo melodramatic. There are a lot of problems with Earl Swagger. He's supposed to be a "John Wayne type" (not my description, characters in the books actually tell him that to his face -- over and over!) But there are so many ways in which the tough Arkansas lawman never rings true. How come he's a Southerner who refuses to endorse Civil Rights for blacks, but yet he's always somehow punishing racist whites? It's like he'll do anything for blacks but admit that things have t...

Earl Swagger is temporarily stuck in an illegal prison deep in the south. He manages to escape with the aid of an old black man he thought was the prison snitch, presumed drowned in the swamp, and promises to return and free all.He's the Pale Horse of the title.

This was the first one of the books about Bob Lee's father that I read. I had read most of the Bob Lee books and never really thought that the books about his father would be as good but I was wrong.This book is very good and has lost of action and the great story line that you expect from Stephan Hunter.I highly recommend it for any Bob Lee fans.

Very graphic, but an action packed page turner. Not my typical book, but so happy I read it! If anyone has seen Shooter with Mark Wahlberg, this is by the same author/series.

I did just read this, but I may have to concede to this novel the title of My Favorite Stephen Hunter Novel©. Earl’s good buddy Sam Vincent (the lawyer we met in the earlier Black Light...or was it Point of Impact?) has disappeared at the super-mysterious, super-ominous Thebes State Penal Farm (Colored) while on a mission to find a disappeared person for a client. Because Earl is a good friend of Sam’s and just an extremely goodhearted yet utterly badass type of dude he decides to go up to Thebe...

As the Swagger novels have gone on the quality has declined. Which is a fairly common thing with all long running series. Be it novels, television, movies etc. "Pale Horse Coming" isn't one of Hunter's better novels, but there are aspects that I liked. As others have pointed out this is "Cool Hand Luke" meets the "Magnificent Seven" with a little bit of William Faulkner thrown in for good measure.The book is written in the style of the tough crime fiction of the 1950's. If you doubt it find your...

James Lee Burke is by far my #1 author, ever. But damn if Stephen Hunter might give him a run for the money.

A fast, fun action thriller that is great on its own terms, but is a bit problematic on a larger scale.As is the norm with Hunter, the gun stuff is fantastic, and I don't just mean the action. Chapter 55, where the old men prepare for war, may be the best thing he ever wrote. And he's won a Pulitzer.The action is great and the story is well-told, but this is where the ground gets shaky. There are some serious Great White Savior vibes here, cruel white villains not withstanding. Then, there's Hun...

Very excellent contiunation of the Earl Swagger saga. We get to learn a lot more about Sam here as well. Earl is still one of the Baddest Asses around.

I would describe this book as the movies Missing in Action, The Pelican Brief and the Magnificent Seven all rolled into one fantastic story. I picked this book up at a thrift store because it looked interesting. I was greatly surprised. This is a terrific book, with well developed characters. I really liked the fact that Hunter used biographies of real life, well-known gunmen of the 20th century. He changed the last names Elmer Kieth aka: Elmer McKay, Jack O'Conner aka: Jack O'Brien and Audie Mu...

Disappointing follow up to Hot Springs. I can suspend disbelief once or twice at the start of a story but this just keeps getting nuttier as it goes along. That could be okay if it is meant to be humorous, but this is extraordinarily dark and trying to be very serious about a slew of real problems.

intensely violent...at times, offensive....but difficult to put down, and even harder to forget.