Reviews for The bullet garden

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

It's been nearly 20 years since the last Earl Swagger novel (Havana, 2003), and Hunter fans have been salivating to learn more about the father of Bob Lee Swagger, hero of 12 novels of his own. Our wishes are granted here, in a novel that fills in an important chunk of Earl's origin story. In an earlier Bob Lee adventure (The 47th Samurai, 2007), Hunter used flashbacks to recount Earl's exploits in the Pacific during WWII. Now the focus turns to Europe, where Earl is summoned to devise and implement a strategy to combat the German sniper campaign impeding Allied progress across France. Earl, "that sphinx of masculinity, taciturnity, and implacability," does that, of course, with Hunter supplying a meaty dose of the gun lore and breathtaking action sequences that have long defined his writing. But this is no one-dimensional battlefield drama; Earl proves just as capable at dealing with self-serving bureaucrats as he is at hunting rival snipers, and Hunter captures the backroom shenanigans expertly. He also injects perfectly placed moments of comic relief into the narrative, largely through the high jinks of two enlisted men, Archer and Goldberg, who would rather talk movies than fight Nazis, but in whom Swagger sees something more. A tour de force of a war novel.


Publishers Weekly
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Bestseller Hunter’s superb fourth Earl Swagger novel (after 2003’s Havana) details the sniper’s origin story. It’s 1944, and Marine Gunnery Sgt. Earl Swagger, a veteran of three Pacific island campaigns—Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and Tarawa—is at Parris Island training recruits how to shoot their new M1 Garand rifles. In Europe, Gen. Omar Bradley’s First Army is bogged down just days after D-Day in what are called the “bullet gardens” of France—lush green meadows laced throughout with almost impenetrable hedgerows. Because German snipers are taking a heavy toll on Allied troops, especially at night, Swagger is called to London to join the OSS under Col. David K.E. Bruce to develop an anti-sniper campaign. Several side plots add intriguing complications, including a romance with Bruce’s beautiful assistant, WAC Lt. Millie Fenwick, and the unearthing of a surprising traitor. All the elements slot neatly into place in the end, particularly Swagger’s ingenious solution to the problem of the German snipers. Terrific writing, amusing literary references, fascinating gun lore, and intense action scenes help make this one of Hunter’s best. Established fans and newcomers alike will be enthralled. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM Partners. (Jan.)


Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Earl Swagger’s heroics are let loose in the deadly fields of World War II France. After D-Day, Allied forces take heavy casualties from snipers in France’s rolling hills and farmland checkered with mazes of hedgerows and brush fences. The French call the area the bocage, but the troops know it as “the bullet garden.” One relatively lucky soldier takes a shot in the hip: “Man, did he go down, full of spangles and fire flashes and lightning bugs and flies’ wings.” Worse, as many as 1,500 men take slugs right beneath the helmet and behind the ear, ripping through the brain. The enemy has a marksman who is so good that it doesn't matter what you're doing: “If he fires you're dead.” The Allied army and the Office of Strategic Services decide to find their own best sharpshooter to hunt the sniper down. They pick Marine Gunnery Sgt. Earl Swagger, already a veteran of Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and Tarawa, with a hard-earned reputation as a war god, of always being right, knowing everything, fearing nothing, and having been “born so brave bullets were afraid of him.” So he becomes an army major for his stint in Europe, and he begins his hunt. At the site of one killing, a soldier sneezes, and that of all things gives Swagger a clue on the road to finding his prey. The author offers up great descriptions that invite the reader to fill in the blanks: “No one would call him handsome; no one would call him ugly. He was simply a Marine.” The hero isn’t given to chitchat or emotion, and there isn’t a maudlin molecule in his body. That’s all to the good for a man of the gun. The villain gets to show his personality, showing a flicker of humanity as he remembers a lost love—but he’s a killer at his core. If he isn’t killing, he isn’t living. Meanwhile, there’s a spy plot set in London, where the slimy Mr. Raven lurks in the nighttime with a scarf covering his deviated septum. The story is loaded with colorful characters, crisp dialogue, bullets, and blood. Tense, smart, fast-moving action starring the future father of Hunter's Bob Lee Swagger. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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