Night of Thunder: Bob Lee Swagger, Book 5

Loved this book. Great writer- what a story. The author puts you in the action; you are part of it. Man, can this guy write. Oh yeah, I recommend this book. Yes, indeed.

Liked this one from page one.Nikki Swagger is a twenty four year old newspaper reporter. She's the police reporter for the Bristol Courier-Herald in Bristol Tennessee. A Bristol Tennessee thats the home of a big NASCAR race to be held in a few days. The Sharpie 500 will draw hundreds of thousands to Bristol.Nikki is working on a story about meth and meth labs. Seems meth is available all over the Bristol area and Nikki has spoken with dozens of people. She's had no luck other than k 2:11. Or is it Mark 2:11? The k 2:11 is a type of amunnition and the Mark 2:11 is in the bible. She's not sure so she leaves a message with her Dad about that 2:11.Nikki's also picked up rumors of gunplay around the nexus of 67-167 routes. All she found there was some kind of a Baptist prayer camp nestled behind a No Trespassing sign. Of course being Nikki she ignored the sign and drove on in.Once in she met a Col Sanders lookalike. The guy was dressed in a powder blue Wal-Mart suit. No luck with this guy so she headed back out to the highway.Nikki had pulled off the road to use her phone and check something on her laptop. She also orders a book from Amazon.The mountain road she's been traveling is one dangerous piece of road with switchbacks galore. A piece of road that takes your full attention to navigate.As she's sitting there a car shoots by. Nikki looks up and sees a car traveling way to fast for that killer of a road. The car is flying.Nikki gets back on the road and heads for home.Nikki then becomes the victim as someone in a car is doing his best to kill her. To drive her off the road.Thanks to her being a cracker jack go cart driver when she was younger she makes it almost down the mountain. Almost, before he finally runs her off the road.So begins one pretty damned good read.This one has a clan of of murderers, NASCAR, murder, robbery, crooked cops, one hell of a driver, his brother, Nick Memphis and the FBI and Bob Lee Swagger looking for justice.Five stars and then some.

Bob Lee Swagger's character grew on me as I read book one in the series. I rated the first four books five stars. Book five, Night of Thunder, involves NASCAR. While that might be a good setting for Bob Lee Swagger, I didn't find the story as exciting as earlier Bob Lee Swagger stories. Stephen Hunter did continue writing in his enjoyable poetic style so Night of Thunder rates at least four stars and is definitely worth reading. I know that I'll continue reading the remaining books in the Bob Lee (and Earl) Swagger series.

I am a BIG Steven Hunter fan. Have read most of his books and thoroughly enjoyed them. This story is certainly sub-par for Hunter. The basic premise is a good one, but the story runs out-of-control. The sequence of events is totally unrealistic, almost ludicrous, even for "Bob The Nailer", who by this point is in his mid-60s. I actually had to push to wade through the last half of the story. You can skip this Hunter novel, in my opinion.

This book is one of those that is hard to put down once you start reading. I like Mr. Hunter's way of having two or more things going on at once, then bouncing back and forth between them until he reaches a point where he brings everything together. In order to get the most out of his books the reader must read each word clear to the end because Mr.Hunter likes to put twists and turns in the last few pages that explain things that may otherwise have left some open ends or questions in the mind of the reader. At least that's my take on it. This was a great novel. I'm just getting into Mr. Hunter's series, and I plan to read them all. I feel like I am right there with Bob Lee Swagger. Super exciting.Before my wife was kind enough to buy a Kindle Fire for me for Christmas, I read I Snipper which was my intro into Mr. Hunter's work. It too was a great book full of suspense which I feel is a key word for Mr. Hunter's series. I'm now about half way through Dead Zero. This is a little different setting but filled with suspense all the way. I really don't think a person needs to read the series in order because each of the books has it's own personality, and when I know Bob Lee is involved, I'm really not concerned with the order as I know it's going to be good.That'a another of Mr. Hunter's many talents. Since I have my Kindle and can order most anything under the sun from Amazon, I don't even have to leave the comfort of my home. I just make a selection and there it is. As for Mr. Hunter, I hope he doesn't come down with writer's cramp as I'm looking forward to reading everything he writes.Thank You

The only thing wrong with this book is the NASCAR setting. I HATE NASCAR. HATE IT, HATE IT HATE IT. I am taking a point off because I HATE NASCAR.It's hard to believe that the American public could even FIND something stupider and more pointless to watch than grown men running up and down a wooden floor bouncing balls--but they DID, and it's called NASCAR.But for a Bob Lee Swagger book, I'll put up with it for a couple of hours. Which says a LOT about how much I love Stephen Hunter's Bob Lee.The best thing about Bob Lee Swagger is that he AGES like a normal human being, and has to compensate for the age related deterioration of some of his physical skills with the hard earned treachery of wisdom. Hunter does a fabulous job of characterization from that aspect of Swagger's character. It's also nice to see that Bob Lee has maintained his friendship with Nick Memphis--who I love, too. I wish that Hunter would write an outrigger novel or two about Nick....

I'd forgotten how good Stephen Hunter was in the ten years since reading him. Bob Lee Swagger is a terrific protagonist. Night of Thunder is a great read.

Bob Lee saves the day again.Hunter is a master of his craft, intelligently weaving the required facts in the the thrilling plot, deep with technical detail.Great read

Another outing for Bob Lee Swagger, the ex-Marine sniper. When his daughter Nikki Swagger a journalist, who has been investigating the drug trade in Tennessee, is involved in a car crash, Swagger worries that it might be an old enemy seeking revenge by proxy. Little does he know that she has stumbled into a bigger conspiracy.Swagger is worried and he heads to Tennessee himself. Unconvinced that the sheriff has the right focus after dismissing the accident as a drug fuelled local having fun, he begins to dig himself. He soon encounters a strange preacher, a violent crime syndicate and starts to uncover some of the same things that lead to the attack on his daughter.I have read a few of the Swagger series, although I had not realised there were as many as their air. I read I, Sniper before this, but I enjoyed this book much more. As my review of I, Sniper states, I felt it went too technical, whereas this treads the line much better. What I have now come to expect of Hunter's rich descriptive prose is in full flow, the story is interesting and the references to NASCAR well researched. Overall an excellent outing, and I'll be looking for some of the other Swagger books on Kindle.

Loved the shooter series so took a chance on the novels. Probably should have started with Hunters earlier efforts. The premise was decent, Swaggers daughter is run off the road and he tries to determine who and why. So lots of action at the start and then it stalled. I got half way through and gave up which isn't like me. Ive read slow burners before but there has to be some excitement by the half way stage right? Didn't want to put myself through the mundane boredom anymore and don't really care how it ended!!

I was surprised by this series of books as I would never have previously considered them. I mixed up my kindle with a friends on a plane flight and got hooked on the second book in the series. Since then I have read them all apart from this (see later).If you like the books in the series you will like this unless you are British as the colloquialisms are not quite right and are rather annoying. I was enjoying it but never finished it as it kept crashing my kindle at 82%.

Always happy to read another Swagger story, love the way it moves along and particularly liked the 'baddie's' of this tale. Grumley's need another outing please !

Great adventure