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Dead Zero: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel (Bob Lee Swagger Novels Book 7) by [Stephen Hunter]

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Stephen Hunter

Dead Zero: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel (Bob Lee Swagger Novels Book 7) Kindle Edition

by Stephen Hunter (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Book 7 of 12: Bob Lee Swagger

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From New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Hunter comes a thriller that pits former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger against the only man who might be able to outshoot him.

A marine sniper team on a mission in tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Whiskey 2-2 is ambushed by professionals using the latest high-tech shooting gear. Badly wounded, the team’s sole survivor, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka “the Cruise Missile,” is determined to finish his job. He almost succeeds when a mystery blast terminates his enterprise, leaving a thirty-foot crater where a building used to be—and where Sergeant Cruz was meant to be hiding.

Months pass. Ray’s target, an Afghan warlord named Ibrahim Zarzi, sometimes called “The Beheader,” becomes an American asset in the region and beyond, beloved by State, the Administration, and the Agency. He arrives in Washington for consecration as Our Man in Kabul.

And that brings Ray Cruz out of hiding.

Swagger, the legendary hero of seven of Hunter’s novels from Point of Impact to last year’s bestselling I, Sniper, is recruited by the FBI to stop the Cruise Missile from reaching his target. The problem is that the more Swagger learns about what happened in Zabol, the more he questions the US government’s support of Zarzi and the more he identifies with Cruz as hunter instead of prey.

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December 28, 2010
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephen Hunter has written over twenty novels. The retired chief film critic for The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, he has also published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dead Zero
WHISKEY 2-2

ZABUL PROVINCE

SOUTHEASTERN AFGHANISTAN

0934 HOURS

Consciousness came and went; the pain was constant. It was the day after the ambush. The flesh wound in Cruz’s right thigh still oozed blood and the entire right side of his body wore a purple-yellow smear of bruise. It hurt so bad he could hardly negotiate the raw landscape that strobed in and out of focus all around him in the harsh sunlight. But Ray Cruz, a gunnery sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, was one of those rare men with a personality of hard metal—unmalleable, impenetrable, unstoppable. Back at battalion, he was called the Cruise Missile. Once fired, he kept moving until he hit the target. Since 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion was a Special Forces–rated unit, it got all the cool jobs, and he was the go-to guy on patrol security, Agency snatch-and-grabs and various countersniper and IED problems. He ran Sniper Platoon. He was always there, in the shadows on the ridge line or the village roof—sometimes spottered up, sometimes not, with his SR-25, a beast of a .308 semiauto with a yard of optics up top—paying out survival for his people at long range in packages that weighed 175 grains apiece. He never missed, he never counted or cared about the kills.

Yet now, no one would confuse him for what he was. He was dressed in the loose-fitting, easy-flowing tribal garments of the Pashtun, the people of the mountains. He looked like Lawrence of Afghanistan. His brown face was crusty with beard and filth, his lips cracked. He wore sandals and a burnoose, obscuring his visage, and not one item of government-issue clothing. He was also among goats.

There were fourteen of them left. It is fine to love animals until you try to herd goats. The goats weren’t into team spirit. They free-ranged, somewhat raggedly, depending on need or whim, and Cruz was able to keep them moving roughly forward by constant screaming and beating with his staff. And when he swatted at them with the staff, the weight went to his damaged leg and a new blade of pain thrust up into his guts. They shat everywhere, without apparent effort or awareness. They attracted flies in clouds. They smelled of shit and blood and dust and piss. They babbled constantly, not so much a classic bah-bah-bah but more of a whiney singsong bleating, like kids on a long bus ride. He hated them. He wanted to kill them with the rifle under his robes, eat them, and go home. But he had a goddamned job to do and he could not make himself quit on that job. It wasn’t will or habit, it certainly wasn’t out of any notion of the heroic or Semper Fi or memories of Iwo and Chosin and Belleau Wood. It was just that his mind wasn’t organized in such a way as to consider alternatives.

The rifle shifted uncomfortably under his swirl of robes. It was a little lighter than the SR-25, a Russian-designed, Chinese-manufactured thing called a Dragunov SVD, with a skeletal wooden stock and a longish barrel, looking a little like an AK-47 stretched in a medieval torture machine. A battlefield pickup from some long-forgotten firefight that its owner came out of second-place winner, its strap bit into his shoulder and its rough surfaces gouged him as it slipped this way or that. It was awkward, a heavy piece of crudely machined parts, mostly metal, with knobs, bolts, buttons, ledges, and all sorts of things sticking out of it. It represented the Russian school of ergonomics that was “Fuck you, end user.” A Chinese 4× sight had been clamped on top with a strange range finder—it looked like a cartoon of a ski-jump slope—as part of the reticle information that only someone from an East-bloc culture could dream up. He hated it. Yet he was lucky to have it. And one magazine of ten 7.62 × 54 sniper-grade Chinese cartridges.

It was all he had left. He’d started with a spotter, an ample supply of food and water, and no bullet having blown six ounces of flesh off his leg. The trek the long way around to Qalat would only be three days in. After the shot, maybe a day of escape and evasion. Then his spotter would put in the call, and a Night Stalker would helo them out and they’d be back at FOB Winchester in time for beer and steak. And the Beheader, as Ibrahim Zarzi, warlord of the southeastern Pashtun tribes, opium merchant, prince, spy, charmer, betrayer, Taliban sympathizer, and Al-Qaeda liaison was known, would be sucking poppy from the root end first.

But it didn’t happen that way. Reality seldom follows mission-op outlines.

“Why send men, Major?” Ray had asked the battalion intelligence officer, the S-2, in the S-2 bunker, to an audience of the CO, the exec, and the Sniper Platoon lieutenant. “Can’t our Agency friends send a missile? Isn’t that what they do? Have some zen master pinball kid sitting in a trailer in Vegas flying a joystick take him out with a Hellfire?”

“Ray, I shouldn’t tell you this,” Colonel Laidlaw said, “but it’s your ass on the line, so you have a right to know. The Administration has tightened up on the missile hits. Too much collateral. The UN squawking. This guy’s complex is in heavy urban. You go all Hellfire on his ass, yes, you probably send him to his God. But you send two hundred other rug weavers along with him and you’ve got the New York Times violin section in full blast. These folks don’t like that.”

“Okay, sir. I can take him. I’m just worried about the E and E from Qalat. I want to get my guy out and also my own ass. Can we have Warthogs standing by to cowboy up the place if it gets tight? We won’t have enough firepower to shoot our way out of anything.”

“I can get you Apaches ASAP. Our Apaches. I don’t want to lay on Air Force Warthogs because I’ve got to go through too many chains of command and too many people have to sign off on it. It’s not all that secure.”

The marines liked the Air Force guys because they thought the A-10 gun tubs were so well armored the pilots had the confidence to get down to marine level before they started blowing shit up and killing people. They thought their own pilots lacked the killer instinct—and the armor—for nose-in-the-dirt flying. They hung far off, launched Hellfires, then went home and slept between clean sheets after martinis in the officers’ club. Some even had girlfriends, it was rumored.

So: no Hogs, maybe Apaches. That was it and it never occurred to Ray to come up with a turndown. If he didn’t do it, somebody else would, and whoever that somebody was, he wouldn’t be as good as Ray.

It had to be done. The Beheader—the nickname came because it was rumored he was the mastermind behind a kidnapped journalist who’d suffered that fate when he’d gone off on his own in Qalat to get the Taliban side of the story—was an eternal problem for marines in the southeastern operating area. When IEDs went off as command vehicles passed in resupply convoys, it was because the Beheader’s spies had infiltrated and knew how to ID the one Humvee out of twenty-five that carried brass. When patrols were ambushed, and major ops had to be launched to get them out of the trouble they’d gotten into, and the shooters had mysteriously vanished into nothingness, it was suspected they had simply ducked into the off-limits Zarzi compound. When a sniper dinged a CIA operations officer, when a mortar shell or an RPG detonated with far too much accuracy to be a random shot, when an Afghan liaison officer was found with his throat cut, all the signs pointed to the Beheader, who was in all other respects a wonderful man; a charmer; a handsome, well-educated fellow (Oxford, University of Iowa) with impeccable table manners who, when he allowed Americans, including high-ranking marine officers, into his home, boldly violated Islamic taboo by designating a liquor room, where a superb bartender made any drink you could imagine served under a little paper umbrella.

“I want this guy dead’r ’n shit,” said the colonel. “I had to fight command and the Agency to get a kill authorized. Ray, I’d love to push the button and watch the computer kids whack him, but it’s not going to happen. You’ve got to walk in, drop him with a rifle shot, and walk out.”

“Got it,” said Ray.

The shooting site had to be the roof of the Many Pleasures Hotel, across the street from the Beheader’s compound. Once a week, the man was predictable. At twilight on Tuesday—it was always Tuesday—he left the compound by armored Humvee and went into the Houri district, where he visited a nice young prostitute named Mindi, with eyes like almonds, hair the color of night, and ways and means beyond the imagination. And why didn’t he just move her in? Well, concubine politics. He had three wives and twenty-one kids, and already wives number one and three hated each other; his second concubine was plotting against his first concubine; all the women were lobbying incessantly for a trip to Beverly Hills; and what little domestic tranquility that could be had would be shattered by adding Mindi to the mix. Thus it was felt that not only her sexual skills but the fact that she was deaf and dumb gave the Great Man a peace and serenity unavailable in his own hectic home.

In any event, Tuesday at twilight, he predictably strode from his house to the vehicle, a distance of some ten yards. It was then and only then that he was vulnerable to a shot. Shooting suppressed from a little over 200 yards out, with just enough angle to clear the wall but still access the target, Ray could easily put a Chinese sniper bullet into the Beheader in his five-second window of opportunity. Chaos would ensue, and the militiamen in the bodyguard squad would have no idea where the shot had come from and would certainly begin firing wildly, driving people to cover. Ray and his spotter would fall back from the Many Pleasures Hotel, rappelling off the roof and making their way into the crowded Houri district, just a few blocks away, where they would go to ground. They’d just be two more faceless, bearded Izzies in a city full to bursting with them. The next night, they’d exfiltrate the city, make it to a certain hill about five miles to the south, and wait for the Night Stalker to come pick them up.

“It sounds easy,” said S-2. “It won’t be.”

On the first day, he and Skelton had passed a couple of Taliban patrols on the high track but attracted no interest from those wary fighters, whose gimlet eyes were used to piercing the distance for the sand-and-spinach digital camo of marine war fighters. The Tallys saw goatherders all the time, and if these two were a little more raggedy ass than most they saw, it didn’t register. They moved at goat pace, without urgency, without apparent direction, letting the wiry little animals eat, shit, and fuck as their goat brains saw fit, but generally moseying in the direction of the big market at Qalat where their thirty-five treasures could be sold for slaughter.

As part of their security procedure, Whiskey 2-2 avoided villages, slept without campfires, ate rice balls and unleavened sheaves of dry bread, and wiped their hands on their pants and shat without toilet paper.

“It’s just like the Sigma Chi house,” said Lance Corporal Skelton as they came to the top of a rise and found a tricky path down the other side.

“Except you don’t jack off as much,” said Ray.

“I don’t know about you, Ray, but I don’t need to jack off much. I had a real nice time with that blond goat last night. She’s a princess.”

“Next time, keep it down. May be bad guys in the vicinity.”

“She sure does moan, doesn’t she? Boy, do I know how to please a gal or what?”

The two men laughed. Lance Corporal Skelton didn’t have a Chinese sniper rifle under his robes and vests, but he did have ten pounds of HF-90M Ultralight radio, an M4 with ACOG, ten magazines, and a case containing a Schmidt & Bender 35× spotting scope. All that shit: he moved like an old lady.

They were in high plains country, trending north. The Paki mountains rose ahead, over the unseen border, mantled in snow and sometimes fog, more tribal territory where Americans couldn’t go for fear of execution upon apprehension. The land they negotiated was rocky and hardscrabble, clotted with waxy, tough, gray vegetation. Rocks lay everywhere, and each hill revealed a new landscape of secret inclines and defilades, and it was all brown-gray, coated with dust or grit. They were right on the border between the rising plains and the actual foothills, and out here it was desolate. Except of course they knew they were being watched and always assumed some Taliban was gazing their way through the scope of a Dragunov or a nice pair of Russian binoculars. So no American-jock crap as young athletic fellows are wont to do, no air jump shots or long, deep fantasy passes; no scooping up the hot grounder and firing to first. No middle fingers, no mock-comic “Fuck yous,” no hyperattention to hygiene, no acknowledgment that such things as germs existed or that Allah was less than supreme. Prayer mats, five times a day on the knees to Mecca; you never knew who was watching.

And, of course, somewhere up above lurked either a satellite or more likely a Predator drone configured for recon and riding the breezes back and forth behind a tiny turbocharged engine, so they were probably on monitors in living color in every intelligence agency in the free world. It was like being on Jay Leno, except for the Afghanistan part. So another sniper discipline was: don’t look up. Don’t look at the sky, as if to acknowledge that somebody was up there to watch over them. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The idea that Stephen Hunter could write a Bob Lee Swagger novel in which the legendary Vietnam sniper doesn’t pull a single trigger seems inconceivable. Not that there isn’t plenty of trigger-pulling by others in this tale of a contemporary marine sniper gone rogue. Swagger, now in his 60s, is drafted by the FBI to find Sergeant Roy Cruz, who was presumed dead after his attempted assassination of an Afghan warlord went awry. The warlord has now changed sides and is being groomed as “our man in Kabul,” but the resurfaced Cruz isn’t buying the conversion and appears determined to finish his original mission. Swagger, charged with stopping any attempt on the Afghan leader’s life, soon finds himself sympathizing with his fellow sniper and convinced that CIA generals are behind a secret program to ramp up the war on terror. It’s a juicy premise, which Hunter admits adapting from Patrick Alexander’s 1977 Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal; transformed to a contemporary setting, it evokes the government-treachery themes of 24 but does so with less cartoony derring-do and a considerably more nuanced exploration of the psychology of the soldier. Only the revelation of a connection between Swagger and Cruz seems a bit artificial, but this is a top-notch thriller all the same, showing that Bob the Nailer is just as (well, almost as) compelling a hero without his guns. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: I, Sniper, Hunter’s previous Swagger novel (85,000 hardcovers in print), remained on the New York Times best-seller list longer than any of his previous novels, and this one will ride the same wave. --Bill Ott --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Stephen Hunter’s brilliantly realized action tale Dead Zero sets a sniper to catch a sniper. And it should come as no surprise that the sniper doing the catching is none other than Hunter's seminal series hero Bob Lee Swagger. . . . Once again Swagger hits the bull’s-eye and so does Hunter. Master of the modern gunfighter tale, he isn't just the best action writer of this generation, but the best of any.”—The Providence Journal

“It's probably no accident that the hero of Stephen Hunter's Dead Zero is named Bob Lee Swagger. Few authors, of any genre, write with as much swagger and verve as film-critic-turned-thriller-bestseller Hunter. . . . As expected, Hunter once again writes with a brutal beauty.”—Ft. Worth Star Telegram

“Reading a Bob Lee Swagger novel is like visiting your favorite uncle, the one with the mysterious limp, the locked gun safe, and whose wild tales are often truncated by your concerned parents…It's a complicated story with the usual twists and spinouts and double-crosses, but what lifts it above the fray is its smarts and its broad cast of decently drawn characters.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“Hunter, 64, is the longtime (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) film critic for The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post, and the Swaggers—Bob and his father, Earl—are his most memorable creations. . . . As the latest adventure opens, Ray Cruz—a much younger and equally gifted Marine sniper—is tracking Ibrahim Zarzi, a corrupt Afghan politician nicknamed "The Beheader" . . . Armed with his SR-25, Cruz is inventive, charismatic and, in short, everything Bob the Nailer used to be. Dead Zero is at its best when Hunter has Cruz in the novel's crosshairs.” . . . I can only hope it's the novel that finally convinces Hunter to flesh out the history of a new sniper and allow Bob the Nailer the retirement he so richly deserves.”—The Oregonian

“Despite overwhelming critical acclaim for his seven-book Bob Lee Swagger series, Stephen Hunter and his novels seem to stay under the general readership radar. . . . The books are so well-crafted and expertly written that it's easy to forget they're adventure-thrillers.”—Sacramento Bee

“Stephen Hunter's Bob Lee Swagger is getting to be almost as popular as James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux or Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. This ‘old coot,’ as Swagger calls himself, has a staying power that won't quit. . . . Bob Lee Swagger and his marine hero dad Earl are super soldiers in the world of fiction. . . . In Dead Zero, Swagger uncharacteristically hunts with the pack. And he doesn't like it one bit. There's a marine sniper out there who just won't die. He mirrors Swagger in his talent and intensity. His name is Ray Cruz . . . Dead Zero is packed with Hunter's patented action sequences, great character studies and sinister villains working on their doctorate in Power. Here's hoping we see more of the unstoppable Ray Cruz. He'd make a fitting successor in Hunter's army elite.”—Madison County Herald.com

"The only book better than a new Jack Reacher novel is a new Bob Lee Swagger adventure. Dead Zero, with a dynamite plot and riveting characters, is everything any action fan could want as Swagger, now hitting Senior Citizenhood, pits his wits against a man who could be a younger version of himself."—Toronto Globe and Mail

“[A] juicy premise, which Hunter admits adapting from Patrick Alexander’s 1977 Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal; transformed to a contemporary setting, it evokes the government-treachery themes of ‘24’ but does so with less cartoony derring-do and a considerably more nuanced exploration of the psychology of the soldier. . . . A top-notch thriller.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Stellar . . . Solid characterization complements the tight, fast-moving plot.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“In Hunter’s latest, Bob Lee Swagger stalks Bob Lee Swagger. Well, just about. If anyone could be more valorous, more skilled and resourceful, more uncompromisingly upright, and at the same time more downright deadly than Bob Lee Swagger, it would have to be Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz. . . . [An] intricate, interchanging game of predator to prey and prey to predator.”—Kirkus Reviews --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003UYURZ6
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (December 28, 2010)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 28, 2010
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4132 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 529 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #153,827 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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Stephen Hunter

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Stephen Hunter won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism as well as the 1998 American Society of Newspaper Editors Award for Distinguished Writing in Criticism for his work as film critic at The Washington Post. He is the author of several bestselling novels, including Time to Hunt, Black Light, Point of Impact, and the New York Times bestsellers Havana, Pale Horse Coming, and Hot Springs. He lives in Baltimore.

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761 global ratings

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A. OConnor

Dead Zero Not

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 19, 2014

Verified Purchase

I've read many Bob the Nailer novels by Stephen Hunter and I'd like to say I have done so because it is a guilty pleasure but in reality I'm getting kinda sick of reading how Bob goes from this cool customer dealing out justice from the barrel of a rifle yet now, for some reason, Hunter has felt compelled to make Bob into an old doddering FOP who's become the male version of Angela Lansbury's character in "Murder She Wrote"... perhaps Hunter should write a 'Nailer novel entitled "Murder He Wrote" or "Sought"; turning Bob into a sleuth rather than continue on with Bob being, well, Bob. I know Hunter is "growing" the Bob character, making him mature, mellow out in his old age, rather than him grow old and grumpier; give him a wife, a child, a life of leisure with many properties and growing wealth yet burden him with Alistair MacClean-esque past injuries that limit mobility, slow him down, constantly cause him pain and suffering whilst solving a "whodunnit". All Hunter needs to do to complete the MacClean-esque Bob is end each novel with Bob having an all-out battle royale with the primary antagonist, and oh, during a thunderstorm in 32 degree weather.
One wonders if in future novels, Hunter is going to fast forward into time where Bob is an Octogenarian living at some Good Samaritan Society enclave and is once again asked by the US Government to solve a "whodunnit" or break some cabal single handedly, all from his tennis ball "shoed" walker whilst dragging an oxygen tank behind him that he'll use as an IED to kill an attacker ... yet he'll still be able to shoot sub MOA with his Wilson Combat 1911 .45acp at 200 yards, all six rounds in the bullseye in under 2 seconds?
Yes, I'm going over the top. I don't think I'll be buying any more Bob novels unless Hunter comes out with one where Bob takes his last stand, takes down the baddest of the bad in the ultimate shootout and succumbs to his wounds and reunites with Danny, otherwise, I fear Hunter will do the Bob-in-the-old-folks-home storyline that none of us will want to read.

Another thing about Hunter's characters in the Bob Nailer novels... the bad guys are always talking smack like kids in junior-high, very sophomoric in style. If the Contractors in this story were the former professionals that they allegedly were, they'd pretty much not say much of anything other than what was required to do 'the op' as it were. Also, in every novel, his bad guy characters are into sexual deviancy of every stripe, big into dope and booze, boys, girls, men, women, money, tons of cursing... I'm no boyscout but I've been around spec ops types... they don't talk much, even when they let their few hairs down. Former SpecOps types, when their careers in the US Military are over, don't devolve into deviants as per the usual in Hunter's Bob novels. Then near the end of the novel Hunter somehow redeems these deviant's character through a short paragraph or two... I don't get it... either they are truly "bad guys" or they aren't, you can't just instantly redeem them like this just to save face with your Contractor and SpecOps buddies.

One more thing... spoiler alert! Don't read this next line if you plan to buy this book.
We get to know Bob's thoughts here and there throughout the novel, but never get to the "a ha!" moment he discovers the RFID chipped credit card in his wallet, only we get to find out he put that card in his target's briefcase AND this help justify blowing up an American with a Reaper drone only because he's doing high-fives with a Taliban leader and his gang out in the desert. And the American colonel who orders the Contractors to take down Cruz... nothing is said of him and his disposition... all we get is a short paragraph where the Colonel AND the Contractors are doing evil because they think it's for the good of America when in reality we know these characters are criminals and should be prosecuted; I'd say this is a big hole in the storyline but Hunter puts in that paragraph to make what we see them as bad guys but near the end of the story Hunter justifies their nefarious actions through that one paragraph about their true intentions to do good by America and that they are not the "bad guys" we were lead to believe they were... its almost like Hunter thought, "Oops! Forgot to put that paragraph in there!" at the last second before sending the manuscript off to the publisher.

But Hunter is a Pulitzer-Prize winning film critic, so what I have I done lately, right?

Bob

Helpful

A Must Read As Swagger Moves Into New Territory

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 5, 2011

Verified Purchase

Fictional "real time" heroes are not comic book super heroes who never seem to age. They cannot stay young, vibrant, and 35 forever--to have fought in the Vietnam War makes Bob Lee Swagger a 64-65 year old man today with his skills and reflexes seriously eroded by age, yet some reviewers are outraged he is no longer performing heroics and physical actions as he did 20 years ago. Aging a beloved signature character can be a dangerous undertaking for an author. A clever author like Stephen Hunter can find ways to keep the aging hero involved but in an alternative manner as Hunter is doing with Bob Lee. Hunter has wisely and gently evolved Swagger from action hero to action consultant where his tremendous country-bred hunting skills, intuition, and ability to "read" people and crime scenes can be deeply engaged in solving perplexing crimes without having to pull a trigger himself. Circumstances are certainly ripe for Bob Lee to discover and mentor a "new" and improved "nailer".

"Dead Zero" is a noteworthy addition to the Bob Lee Swagger novels and, along with his last 2 novels, a satisfying transition from "doer" to thinker. No longer is he the stunning sniper who leaped from the pages of "Point Of Impact" nearly 20 years ago; however, his ability to see through governmental bureaucracy, read "tells" and motives of suspects, and breakdown crime scenes from a sniper's eye remain unmatched. In "Dead Zero", Swagger is called for assistance by old friend Nick Memphis to help trackdown a rogue marine sniper and/or thwart a possible sniper assassination of an Afghan leader, Ibrahim Zarzi, who has morphed in the liberal press and certain CIA offices from a former warlord known as "the beheader" to "our man in Kabul" as so often happens in international intrigue. But, as usual, all is not as it seems to Bob Lee Swagger who soon begins to doubt the whole enterprise while growing increasingy respectful of the potential sniper.

Ray "Cruise Missle" Cruz led a sniper infiltration team into Afghanistan six months earlier to assassinate Zarzi. Cruz was ambushed by apparent mercenaries who succeeded in killing his spotter and wounding Cruz. A cat and mouse game ensues across Afghanistan as Cruz labors to complete his mission and shake the assassins who are out for his head. A tremendous explosion destroys the building containing the sniper spot where Cruz is believed to be waiting for an attempt at Zarzi. Months later, as Zarzi is visiting Washington, D.C. to announce his intention to run for the Afghan presidency and to cement relations with the US, Cruz reappears with promises to complete his mission. Swagger is called in by the FBI for his sniper expertise and the band of mercenaries reappears energized to terminate Cruz. Who is behind this band of assassins and how high in the governement does a potential conspiracy to protect Karzi and get Cruz at all costs go? And why?

Swagger quickly determines that something is awry as he, Memphis, and several other recurring characters race to prevent the assassination and, hopefully, save Cruz's life. As usual, Bob Lee intuits Ray's thinking and shooting potential. Uncomfortably, he becomes a reluctant advisor to both the government and Cruz who proves his mettle by finding Swagger whenever he needs him. There are distant parallels to some of the plot lines in "Point Of Impact" but the fun for the reader is watching as Swagger outthinks and outmanuevers the bad guys while building an association based on mutual respect with another sniper. Dead Zero" is fast-paced, rich in characters, filled with information not only on guns but also on the modern snipers who operate military drones from afar, and some significant surprises. Highly recommended for those Swagger fans who are intrigued by a great story as well as by his transtion into a new era.

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Hendricks Book Reviews

Lots of action, plenty of guns and fun, best written sniper books in the thriller genre.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 14, 2022

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Book Review - With its hallmark accuracy on modern-day sniper killing technologies, author Stephen Hunter’s “Dead Zero” features an older, more contemplative Bob Lee Swagger. Dead Zero with Swagger as the legendary protagonist of seven of Stephen Hunter’s novels, never lets up on the razor-sharp dialogue, the vivid characterizations, the extraordinary action scenes, and the dazzling ‘prose’ that defines Hunter’s landmark Bob Lee Swagger series. In this tale, Bob Lee Swagger is pulled out of retirement to help the FBI track down a rogue Marine sniper; Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka “the Cruise Missile”. Cruz has been unjustly labeled because he escaped an ambush by an American CIA kill team. Underlying political issues were involved in the incident where Cruz was the only survivor, so he decides to go after those that tried to kill him. As Swagger investigates and tries to stop Cruz, he uncovers covert illegal dealings by the CIA that link them to the Cruz investigation. By now, all sorts of allegations are flying around and more political involvement only clouds the issues. Ultimately, Swagger finds himself supporting Cruz and changing the focus of his investigation to those that wanted Cruz ‘dead’! Dead Zero is an exciting, fast-paced sniper thriller, and a solid read recommendation. I enjoyed this exciting thrill ride and thought this book had some shades of the Mark Walburg movie, "The Shooter" — which was based on Hunter’s very first Bob Lee Swagger novel, “Point of Impact.” Lots of action, plenty of guns and fun, and, as always, one of the best written sniper books in the thriller genre.

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Top reviews from other countries

Nick Brett

Solid, but an odd writing style

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 4, 2012

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I like Stephen Hunter's stuff, but I haven't read them all and tend to dip in and out and often not in sequence. But he has made Bob Lee Swagger an iconic character and done very well to keep rolling out stories on the fairly limited subject of snipers.
Here we have an older semi-retired Swagger being asked to help out the FBI in tracking down a top marine sniper that is almost a younger version of Swagger himself. The sniper has gone off the range to complete a compromised mission and in addition to the legitimate forces after him, there is also a very well informed kill squad. The plot and the characters work pretty well as Swagger starts to wonder who the good guys and the bad guys actually are. So it moves quickly and is a good page turner. That's the good news, the bad news is a slightly odd writing style that I don't remember from previous books. It's almost like the author is, at times, almost winking and having a private joke with the reader as part of the narrative. I found it annoying but not overly intrusive and the action was enough for me to be able to move on past it. But for me, it takes the book down from a potential four stars to a three star read.

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Mick H

Swagger is getting old

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 20, 2011

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Not the old Bob Lee kill em and eat em type stuff, Bob is getting on so is becoming a background operator, hence the introduction of Cruz, the new Bob Lee! Hunters usual good story lines and perhaps too much technical info on the guns and ammo but I've read everything he's produced and have yet to be disappointed, keep writing them Stephen and I'll keep buying em!

Mr. Blue

Stepson sniper chip off old block

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 16, 2017

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Stephen Hunter never disappoints couldn't put it down

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 22, 2015

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First in the BLS series...definitely will NOT be the last!