Customer Reviews

The Master Sniper

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Master Sniper

Murder, conspiracy, Nazis, and guns. If any of those words spark a flame of interest in your mind Master Sniper is a must read. Master Sniper is a novel of twisted murder conspiracies, evil bad guys, and any good novel isn't great without a World War II setting. I personally would recommend this book to any action book fan. This is by far the best book ever written by Stephen Hunter. Set back into the time of Nazi Germany, when Hitler and swing music were dominating the planet. In a German concentration camp a Jewish poet is being held captive, working 16 hours a day just to stay alive. One night they are led into a field in the heart of the Black Forest in Germany. One by one the Jewish prisoners are being sniped. The poet realizes what is happening and tries to escape. He succeeds. In London an American Sargent discovers a new weapon that can snipe better than any other weapon known to man, and with it the Germans can snipe even Eisenhower himself. But the target isn't Eisenhower, it's some one bigger the Eisenhower. Through out the story Leets, the American Sargent discovers more than he ought to know about the Reich. I personally would recommend this book to any one who loves to read historical fiction. I was first drawn to this book because it sounded like an action thriller that would sustain me through an 8-hour long plane ride. Then when I had read it I realized that it had more depth. This is the best novel ever written by Stephen Hunter. There really aren't many details about the book that are bad. Some good parts about the book are that one, the book is realistically placed (in time, setting, and character opinions.) in relation to the time period. In Conclusion, this book is a great, must read novel that deserves five out of five stars.

-Sean Villard

This is not another Bob Lee Swagger tale, although it is about a sniper. Not a Marine Corps sniper, but a Wermacht sniper, in the last days of World War II. Apparently, Stephen Hunter likes to "reach out and touch someone" in his stories. He does a lot of stories based on snipers.

Hunter, by the way, spent his military service in the Army, not the Marine Corps. His bio does not discuss his Army experience, but he has encyclopedic knowledge about firearms, and if he makes a statement about a given model of firearm, or its ballistics, you can bet that he's done his research. He's done a lot of reading on the subject, but how much experience he has, again, is a questionmark. Not, I think, a competitive shooter.

This tale looks at the Office of Strategic Services (reinvented as the CIA) of "Wild Bill" Donovan during WWII, (much like Claire Chennault's Civil Air Transpory was reborn as Air America, the CIA outfit) and the Brit intelligence apparatus, for part of its setting. I was interested to see, again, a reference to Ernest Hemingway--not too flattering. He was also in Hunter's novel, Havana--drunk there, too. I wonder what Hunter has against Papa? Apparently just doesn't like him. I always did.

Another theme in this book is a strong current of sympathy for the Jewish people--not that they didn't deserve it, but I have noticed in Hunter's other books an almost obsessiveness about showing how badly treated were the blacks in the old South. He does seem to get caught up in these matters, a champion of the "underdog", although he uses variations on the "n-word" freely throughout all of his books, and I've read several of them.

These are not just fault-finding comments. Stephen Hunter is currently my favorite author in his genre, as I've said before. He's a wonderful storyteller. But, I think I've accurately detected both his political bent and his agenda, if he has one besides simply writing great stories. He's that rarity, a liberal who knows something about firearms, and may even be infatuated with them. I wish him well, and hope he continues to write great novels to a ripe old age.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret)

author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance

and other books

After reading "Point of Impact," I was really excited about diving into this Hunter work about a German soldier, Repp, skilled in long range shooting, who is on a dangerous mission and has in his possession a very dangerous state of the art weapon to fulfill it.

The book gets a little confusing because there are so many German towns, phrases, organizations, etc that it becomes hard to keep track of them througout the reading. Also, the romantic scene between the hero who hunts down Repp, Leets, and a nurse becomes more distracting and really has no relevance to the story. The action scenes were quite entertaining, however, and the book was hard to put down in the last 100 pages.

It was a decent book but I think I'll stick with the "Swagger" series from now on.

I will always give this author the benefit of the doubt and pick up his work. This work is good and he does a good job in an area he is not normal in, World War Two. As always with him you get a lot of detail and a patience he always seems to give to his main shooter comes through in the writing. The character set is interesting, he stated away from too many of the stereotypes. He always has a good amount of action and this book comes through in that regard. This was not his best work but it is still very good.

I thought this book was all right, nothing to brag about but, all right. I think I might have enjoyed it better if I hadn't already read the Bob Lee Swagger series. By conparison to that series, The Master Sniper doesn't measure up. If you want some truly good reading--and I mean truly GOOD reading--start with Point of Impact and go through the Bob Lee Swagger series.

Summer in the Mississippi delta: hot as an engine block, the kind of weather made for paperbacks by the pool. In that vein I have just completed, damply, the grand tour through Stephen Hunter's lexicon of gun-and-testosterone novels built around the cult of the lone rifleman and the wild killers from the hills and the dutiful men who oppose them.

I liked them all, more or less: the Point of Impact/Dirty White Boys/Black Light trilogy; the now-dated cold-war era countdown to Armageddon "The Day Before Midnight"; and even the weak sister (now there's a Bob Lee Swagger phrase if i've heard one) of the bunch, "The Master Sniper."

Hunter has the mind and the method of the sniper down cold; the author bio mentions Hunter's time in Vietnam, so maybe he is really in the know. In these technical aspects he is unmatched, and his prose is smooth and elegant. He can describe a shooting like no other author I've ever read.

THe problem with "Master Sniper" is that I just couldn't care enough about the story to justify the effort in getting through the book. Don't read on if you are intent on reading the book yourself.

A legendary SS sniper is loosed by Himmler himself to hunt down and kill a prominent Zionist's son in his Swiss refuge. For a killer who has mowed down two or three hundred Russians in a day's work, this presents no insurmountable moral obstacle, for like all of Hunter's villains and some of his heroes, the sniper kills dispassionately, except for the endorphin storm the act of killing releases in the killer.

The hitch is that our sniper can't be sure which of the twenty-odd kids holed up in the Swiss Alpine convent is the right one. No matter; with his cumbersome but deadly infrared night scope he'll take them all out in pitch darkness. The development of this early infrared sight is a major plot thread, and is some of the most interesting reading of the book.

No kid, no inheritance, no fortune to be channelled to postwar Zionist causes. Even better,Himmler figures he'll appropriate the money for the SS and use it to help ex-SS men escape the Allies' Nuremberg noose: ODESSA gets a pay raise. A potentially interesting hook, but it falls flat here in Hunter's telling.

His adversary is a downtrodden American OSS firearms expert, with a shot-up leg and a romance gone bad. I found it very hard to like or admire this Leets, alternating between lovesick puppy and man of steely resolve; and I failed to see how shooting the kid would really stop the Zionists' progress. Maybe my brain has been cooked in my skull by the glare and heat at poolside, but I never quite figured why the kid had to die so that the SS could get his inheritance. And I never grew fond enough of Leets to really care if he succeeded in stopping our Nazi. I found myself rooting for the sniper much of the time since he is the book's most exciting actor.

In summary, the book is filled with tight, tactile, multisensory prose but the storyline itself just didn't reel me in like those of Hunter's other works. If you start with "The Master Sniper", give Hunter another chance before you write him off your summer reading list. Better to start with "Point of Impact" and tag along with Bob Lee Swagger for a while. Lotsa shooting without all the angst.

Read the reviews here at Amazon, the publisher notes are incorrect. I can't believe the publisher even read the book.

Here's the info from the publisher, "It is the spring of 1945, and the Nazis are eliminating all the witnesses to their horrible crimes, including Jews and foreigners remaining in the prison camps. Kommandant Repp, who is known as a master sniper, decides to hone his sniping abilities by taking a little target practice at the remaining laborers in his own prison camp."

Incorrect.

Repp is not the commander of a prison camp. He doesn't "decide to hone his sniping abilities by taking a little target practice" at the laborers. What is happening is that members of the German SS are frantically trying to develop a night vision device before the end of the war for some unknown and ghastly purpose. Repp is the "master sniper" of the project and will be the one to use the device once it has been developed. At the start of the book the Germans are testing the device on some Jews brought into the project for the purpose of being live targets. Unknown to the Germans one of the Jews has added some discarded packing material to the lining of his overcoat. This acts as a super insulator that makes him invisible to the infrared detecting night vision device Repp is using. The Jew escapes in the night to Allied lines and his strange story gives the Allies a clue that the Germans have some sinister project in the works. Because the war is obviously almost over most of the Allies are inclined to ignore the German project. Of course the main characters on the Allied side take the Germans seriously and that makes for a great story.

There are a few holes in the plot you could drive a truck thru. The infrared night vision device cannot "see" a person because they are insulated but at the end of the book Repp blasts several inanimate objects that not emitting any infrared. Don't let these get in the way of enjoying the book. I found the book to be a fasinating action story. Very, very few authors ever get their gun talk right. Stephen Hunter is superb in this regard. (John Sandford aka John Camp is another, he writes great police detective stories.)

rating 3.5 stars

I am a big fan of Stephen Hunter's work. The Swaggert series is fantastic. And there is a slight connection with that via the Vampir (which crops up in Black Light- a story about Earl Swaggert, Bobby Lee's father. There is no Swaggerts in this story, though Repp is a man somewhat similar to Bobby Lee (in some respect, vastly different in others)).

So the major character here as a master sniper named Repp, a german with a mission to perform at the end of world war 2. Of course, he has Vampir to perform it with. This mission is fairly original I must say! It was a nice hook to keep you in in what is a very readable book (and the revelation of the mission won't cause you to cringe either...more like, 'hey wow isn't that cool'): about four hours to read.

It is obvious that Stephen hunter was still learning his craft as his wrote this, however his talent is obvious and consistently shines through. It generally has strong characterizations: Leets, Repp, Susan, Shmauel. And the plot fairly races along, with consistently strong action sequences.

The plot is where this novel falls down at times: the dead-ending of characters and then the sudden inspiration and location of the next lead to follow to chase Repp down is just a little too far-fetched at times, particualrly the segment, mid-book, in the camp. Just a little too convenient. If you know what I mean. I find this rather annoying. To me it seems a cop-out. This colors my opinion (and the unfair comparison with his current work, 20 years later which tends to be REALLY strongly plotted).

However compared to many of the WW2 novels getting around, this one is still better than most. So in all, not a bad read. Fast, clever at times, suspenseful and never slow, dull or boring or worse, totally predictable. The ending is probably resolved too quickly (suggests some heavy editorial pressure was placed on the author) and in a manner that may have you questioning Repp's abilities, knowledge and intuition in being a master sniper. Nevertheless, it still has high adventure tempered with a acute proximity of the Holocaust and the complete disregard for the vlue of human life, other than as something to be exploited while it was of use and exterminated when it was not (Repp uses Jews for target practice with the Vampir: there is a subtle plot issue/flaw in this as well, particulalrly his choice of targets).

You'll certainly notice its shortcoming if you read Stephen Hunter's later work before reading to this one. But fortunately the shortcomings aren't that prevelant or terminal. So enjoy. I could think of worse ways to spend 4 hours.

'The Master Sniper' is a finely crafted novel, a very compelling tale much in the style of recent gems like "The Triumph and the Glory" or "Black Notice", or even books of a more techno-thriller bent like "The Devil's Teardrop." Four stars!

Murder, conspiracy, Nazis, and guns. If any of those words spark a flame of interest in your mind Master Sniper is a must read. Master Sniper is a novel of twisted murder conspiracies, evil bad guys, and any good novel isn't great without a World War II setting. I personally would recommend this book to any action book fan. This is by far the best book ever written by Stephen Hunter. Set back into the time of Nazi Germany, when Hitler and swing music were dominating the planet. In a German concentration camp a Jewish poet is being held captive, working 16 hours a day just to stay alive. One night they are led into a field in the heart of the Black Forest in Germany. One by one the Jewish prisoners are being sniped. The poet realizes what is happening and tries to escape. He succeeds. In London an American Sargent discovers a new weapon that can snipe better than any other weapon known to man, and with it the Germans can snipe even Eisenhower himself. But the target isn't Eisenhower, it's some one bigger the Eisenhower. Through out the story Leets, the American Sargent discovers more than he ought to know about the Reich. I personally would recommend this book to any one who loves to read historical fiction. I was first drawn to this book because it sounded like an action thriller that would sustain me through an 8-hour long plane ride. Then when I had read it I realized that it had more depth. This is the best novel ever written by Stephen Hunter. There really aren't many details about the book that are bad. Some good parts about the book are that one, the book is realistically placed (in time, setting, and character opinions.) in relation to the time period. In Conclusion, this book is a great, must read novel that deserves five out of five stars.