Back in 1993, recently moved to Sisters, Oregon, I grabbed a paperback off a wire rack at the Sentry Market. It was Point of Impact, by Stephen Hunter, and I was up till 3 a.m. with it. The tale of Vietnam-ace Marine Corps sniper Bob Lee Swagger caught up in the web of a dark conspiracy was and remains one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read. When I worked at Paulina Springs Books, I sold stacks of that book, along with James Carlos Blake’s The Pistoleer.
As I’ve noted in a previous post, Hunter’s subsequent work has been a bit hit and miss for me, sometimes going so far over the top that I was thrown violently out of the story. But I’ll always give him a shot (sorry). Especially if he’s heading out to the frontier borderlands. This ’un drops In October, just in time for my birthday…
In the frying pan of a drought-scorched 1890s Southwest, an old man shows up at the region’s only prosperous spread, the Callahan ranch, seeking work. Jack is flinty, shrewd, tough, and a natural with a gun. As an incentive to be taken on at his age, he shows the foreman an uncanny skill with one of Mr. Winchester’s latest models. He knows a sharpshooter would be valuable to Colonel Callahan and head gun man Tom Voth.
But he has his own mission. Aware that a young cowboy on the ranch has died mysteriously, Jack begins to investigate. He soon realizes that the death and the source of the Callahan wealth are dangerously entwined and that many of the dark forces of the American West are at play on the ranch. Soon enough, it’s the season of the six-gun and its fastest shootist.
Yet another generation of the Swagger clan is on the trigger. Sounds like a meat-and-potatoes Western, and I’m fine with that.
Reese Crawford says
Wonder if “Mr Winchester’s latest model” is going to
Be an 1894 in 30-30 like Tom Horn or an 1895 of some variety.
JimC says
Hah! I had the same question.
Ron L Thompson says
Hey, I some new reading to look forward to! I think Hot Springs was the first one of Hunters books for me and then Point of Impact, I think 94/95 when I stumbled onto at our library here in town? I agree with you on the hit and miss on Hunter for sure!!!
Quixotic Mainer says
I hear you on the topic of being turned off by “over the top”. I was posted away for a training once and finished the books I had brought along sooner than expected. I snagged one of the Johnstone “Smoke Jensen” series to give it a try. Good grief. If that many deaths occurred historically it would have depopulated some of the territories.