Hot Springs (Earl Swagger Series #1)

From Barnes & Noble

Our Review
Stephen Hunter is the reigning master of the hard-edged, ultraviolent thriller. The best of his novels -- which, to my mind, include Point of Impact, Dirty White Boys, and The Day Before Midnight -- combine technical expertise, headlong narrative momentum, and an extraordinary sense of detail, which create indelible portraits of larger-than-life men who live -- and often die -- by the gun.

Hunter's latest, Hot Springs, is a period thriller set in the postwar boom town of Hot Springs, Arkansas, a corrupt, wide-open city known for the medicinal effects of its eponymous springs, and for its free and easy tolerance of gambling, prostitution, and illicit pleasures of every sort. The narrative opens in 1946 when Fred C. Becker, a newly elected prosecuting attorney, inaugurates a much-publicized crusade to clean up the city. Becker, a sleazy opportunist with grandiose ambitions, hires two highly qualified professionals to supervise his crusade. One is D. A. Parker, a legendary former FBI agent who once shot it out with Baby Face Nelson and the Barker Gang. The other is former Marine Master Sergeant Earl Swagger, a Medal of Honor winner whose tragic history forms the centerpiece of Black Light and who will go on to father Hunter's most enduring fictional creation: Bob Lee Swagger, known to readers of Point of Impact as Bob the Nailer.

Together, Earl and Parker assemble and train an elite cadre of volunteers -- youthful law officers from various parts of the country. Once out of "boot camp" -- an intensive period of training in weaponry and military assault tactics -- the volunteers, led by Earl, launch a series of increasingly violent raids against the gambling establishments of Owney Maddox, a former New York mobster who has transformed Hot Springs into his own private fiefdom. The conflict between Earl Swagger's raiders -- latter-day embodiments of the Jayhawkers of post-Civil War Kansas -- and Maddox, whose troops include a savage tribe of Arkansas hillbillies known as the Grumleys, rapidly escalates into a small-scale war. As the war progresses, casualties mount on both sides, reaching their peak in a pair of spectacular, vividly described set pieces: a fierce pitched battle in a local black brothel and a nocturnal massacre in a Hot Springs railroad yard. Eventually, both the novel and the war culminate in a primal confrontation in the Arkansas woods, a confrontation that can only end with a single man left standing.

Hot Springs is a big, broad-shouldered narrative that offers a generous display of Stephen Hunter's characteristic virtues. The action sequences are, as always, crisply written, carefully constructed, and absolutely authentic. Hunter's portrait of 1940s Arkansas, with its farms and tenements, its bathhouses and bookie joints, is evocative and convincing. The characters -- most of them imaginary, many of them drawn from life -- are consistently credible. Included among them are an ambitious, embittered turncoat named Frenchy Short; the assorted members of the savage -- and inbred -- Grumley clan; the crusty veteran gunfighter, D. A. Parker; an imported Irish hit man named Johnny Spanish; and the aptly named Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, whose visit to Hot Springs provides him with the template for a gambler's paradise that will eventually be called Las Vegas.

But the real heart of Hot Springs, the still point around which every other every other element revolves, is Earl Swagger, a mournful, melancholy figure with a complex history and a superhuman affinity for the requirements of warfare. Hunter's exploration of Swagger's character and of the forces -- chief among them a violent, abusive, unforgiving father -- that helped create that character, give this novel its emotional and psychological depth, lifting it well above the level of its more generic competitors. Readers already familiar with the ongoing saga of the Swagger family -- a family marked by tragedy and by an innate propensity for violence -- will find this latest installment both revelatory and irresistible. Newcomers will find it a self-contained -- and perfectly acceptable -- starting point. Hot Springs is Stephen Hunter at the top of his considerable form. Popular entertainment rarely gets much better, or more viscerally exciting, than this.

--Bill Sheehan

From the Publisher

Los Angeles Times Hunter is a consummate yarn-spinner whose eye for detail and ear for nuance...create their own riveting brand of reality.

The Denver Post Hunter is Robert B. Parker on steroids, Mickey Spillane with a thesaurus. He writes crime fiction like no one before him.

Publishers Weekly (starred review) Brilliant...His prose has that rare visual quality that takes the action off the page and into the mind....Furnished with brilliant period detail and a dynamo of a lead character, this big, brawny crime drama recountsin highly fictionalized formthe true story of the backlash against corruption and decadence in Hot Springs, Arkansas, during the years following World War II....Hunter has written a powerful, sweeping story, one that effectively deals with multiple themes: the anguish of war vets, deep-seated racism, and fairness and duty in personal and professional life.

The San Francisco Examiner Hot Springs is a richly told tale driven by complex characters, strong dialogue, and a unique plot....Hunter is one of the best storytellers of his generation and he just keeps getting better.

Publishers Weekly (starred review) Brilliant...His prose has that rare visual quality that takes the action off the page and into the mind....Furnished with brilliant period detail and a dynamo of a lead character, this big, brawny crime drama recountsin highly fictionalized formthe true story of the backlash against corruption and decadence in Hot Springs, Arkansas, during the years following World War II....Hunter has written a powerful, sweeping story, one that effectively deals with multiple themes: the anguish of war vets, deep-seated racism, and fairness and duty in personal and professional life.

The San Diego Union-Tribune In this fourth Swagger episode, Hunter has lost none of his touch. Hot Springs is an action novel that is almost as hot as the 142-degree water percolating from the Hot Springs mountain.

The Providence Sunday Journal (RI) Hunter brings power and poignancy to a tale that should be thought of as a great novel, not just a great thriller. Simply stated, he is one of the best novelists working today in any genre and Hot Springs is hands down the best book of the year so far.

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."

Publishers Weekly

Furnished with brilliant period detail and a dynamo of a lead character, this big, brawny crime drama recounts--in highly fictionalized form--the true story of the backlash against corruption and decadence in Hot Springs, Ark., during the years following WWII. Bobby Lee Swagger, the Vietnam vet hero of three of Hunter's previous books (most recently, Time to Hunt), is here supplanted as protagonist by his father. Earl Swagger, a fierce, highly decorated WWII Pacific theater warrior, is a man haunted by the horrors of war, as well as by the abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of his brutal father. Recruited by the district attorney in Hot Springs to help break the hold of mob boss Owney Maddox on the city, Earl, assisted by his team of "Jayhawkers," raids several casinos and whorehouses. He is unaware that he's being betrayed by elements within his unit and by outside forces he thought were on his side. Meanwhile, Earl's personal life is in tatters--his wife is suffering through a perilous pregnancy and he can barely go a minute without mulling over his wartime sins. And he can't stop thinking back on life with his cruel, enigmatic father, his drunken mother, and his helpless younger brother, who committed suicide at 15 to escape it all. Hunter, a film critic for the Washington Post, has written a powerful, sweeping story, one that effectively deals with multiple themes: the anguish of war vets, deep-seated racism, and fairness and duty in personal and professional life. His prose, including some wonderful stretches of backwoods dialect and gritty scenes of physical and emotional turmoil, has that rare visual quality that takes the action off the page and into the mind. Agent, Esther Newberg at ICM. 200,000 first printing; optioned for film by Miramax; 8-city author tour. (July) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

It's 1946, and corruption is flourishing in Hot Springs, AR. Visitors flock there to bathe in the mineral-rich waters, but it's prostitution and gambling that bring prosperity to the mobsters who run the town. Newly elected county prosecutor Fred C. Becker thinks that cleaning up Hot Springs is his ticket to a higher office and recruits decorated World War II marine Earl Swagger, father of Hunter's recurring character Bob Lee Swagger, to run the operation. Swagger, assisted by his well-trained "Jayhawkers," raids several casinos and brothels before a disgraced Jayhawker helps the mob ambush Swagger's team. Becker pulls the plug on the violent operation, but Swagger refuses to give up the fight and instead takes the mobsters on single-handedly. The excellent narration by Jay O. Sanders smooths out the choppy abridgment, and, with film rights already sold to Miramax, this engaging thriller is a sure bet for public libraries.--Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., OH Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Earl Swagger returns from World War II with the medals of a hero and the moral exhaustion of a man who has seen and done too many unthinkable things, and is recruited for a different kind of war: cleaning up a corrupt gambling town in his home state of Arkansas. The bad guys, no-tably casino-czar Owney Maddox and visit-ing bigwig Bugsy Siegel, wear pricey suits and drive fancy cars, but they are just as dangerous as the enemy in the South Pacific and almost as well armed. Earl trains a small band of untried lawmen and leads them into battle for moral possession of the town. While the story is action-packed, it's the background that keeps it from being just another shoot-'em-up. Earl is haunted by both his future and his past. While he fights the good fight, his lonely wife awaits the birth of their son, who will grow up to be the hero of Hunter's earlier Swagger books. And he can't escape the ghosts of a brother who killed himself and a lawman father who was mysteriously murdered just before he left for the war. The interweaving of past and present intensifies the plot and reveals Earl as a multifaceted hero, in contrast to the stock characters who surround him. Readers who find violence exciting will get their fill, but they will also see that the scars it leaves may never heal, and that winning the war may be just the start of the battle.-Jan Tarasovic, West Springfield High School, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

In the category of slam-bang, testosterone-laden, body-bag filling, hellzapoppin' potboilers, this is as good as it gets. For those who may have wondered about the gene pool that helped produce master sniper Bob Lee Swagger, the author's demigod of a series hero (Time to Hunt, 1998, etc.), here's the tell-all prequel. Earl Swagger, valiant marine, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, is Bob Lee's demigod of a daddy. We also meet Bob Lee's brave and beautiful mama. It's the summer of 1946, and Hot Springs, Arkansas, is under the thumb of gangster Owney Maddox, who has a dream: he wants to refashion Hot Springs into an oasis of sin, a place where Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, et al., will feel safe, comfortable, and cosseted. He's halfway there. On the surface Special Prosecutor Fred C. Becker doesn't seem much of a deterrent, but Becker has a dream too: he wants to be Arkansas's youngest governor ever. Moreover, he has a plan: to bring Owney down by recruiting and training an elite task force that can strike hard, fast, and ruthlessly. Earl Swagger—who better?—is charged with the training. At first, things go right. The recruits are eager and motivated. Aided by the element of surprise, they deliver a series of blows that shake the Maddox realm to its Sodom-like foundations. But then Maddox, with the whole of New York gangsterdom to draw from, recruits his own elite force. The stage is set for blood-drenched confrontations, during which lots of bad men are killed, some good men are betrayed, and Earl performs exactly the way Bob Lee's progenitor should. Natural storyteller Hunter knows the value of the occasional poignant scene to give his firefightsbreathingroom. Not for a minute to be taken seriously, but, all in all, a blast. First printing of 200,000; author tour