Hot Springs (Earl Swagger Series #1)

It is the summer of 1946, organized crime's garish golden age, when American justice seems to have gone to seed for good. Nowhere is this more true than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the reigning capital of corruption. When the district attorney vows to bring down the mob, Earl Swagger -- a decorated ex-Marine -- is recruited to run the show. As casino raids erupt into nerve-shattering combat amid screaming prostitutes and fleeing johns, the body count mounts -- along with the suspense.

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

This work by best-selling author Hunter is a "real man's book." Set in Arkansas in the 1940s, the golden age of organized crime, it's at once relentlessly violent and deeply touching, with "very interesting characters." "Who needs Superman?" The main character, Earl, "makes John Wayne look like a wuss." However, some thought "it went on too long." "A good beach read if you're lacking a boogie board."

Stephen Hunter has written 16 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.