Point of Impact

By: Stephen Hunter

Narrated by: Beau Bridges

Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

He was one the best Marine snipers in Vietnam. Today, 20 years later, disgruntled hero of an unheroic war, all Bob Lee Swagger wants is to be left alone and to leave the killing behind.

But with consummate psychological skill, a shadowy military organization seduces Bob into leaving his beloved Arkansas hills for one last mission for his country, unaware until too late that the game is rigged.

The assassination plot is executed to perfection until Bob Lee Swagger, alleged lone gunman, comes out of the operation alive, the target of a nationwide manhunt, with his only allies a woman he just met and a discredited FBI agent.

Now Bob is on the run, using his lethal skills once more - but this time, to track down the men who set him up and to stop a dark conspiracy aimed at the very heart of America.

©1993 Stephen Hunter (P)1993 Random House Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House Inc.

Critic reviews

"Hunter passes almost everybody else in the thriller-writing trade as if they were standing still." (New York Daily News)
"Tautly written...the plot makes a number of turns before swooping to a conclusion where patriotism and personal integrity triumph." (Library Journal)

Good story, Beau is awesome

Perfect tone and delivery by Bridges kept me in this story where I couldn't stop when my commute was over. Worth the credit and a good read that gave me three hours of just what I needed after a long day at the office. Looking forward to watching the movie

Factual Marksmanship

A great story of marksmanship and heroes. The rabbit trails are brilliant!A must read

The movie was better

Maybe I’m influenced by the movie, but the movie story was better than the book’s. The same basic elements, but not as exciting as I though it might be. I listened to this so I could start the series, but I don’t think I will now.

Abridged

Great story but is too skimmed over to develop characters, a shame there isn’t an unabridged version.

Point of Impact

This is a really great book! The abridged version was done very nicely. However an unabridged reading would have been better. So many action scenes I enjoyed were not included.

Point of Impact

Good story about the point of view of Bob Lee. Could have done without the music in the reading....

Speed reading

The story is great, but performance is was too fast. The guy is a speed reader.

Wish it was unabridged

Great book, should be available unabridged. Lose the sound effects, distracting and amateurish.
Love this series.

Great story hampered by narration

The story was great. It is the reason I read Hunter’s works. Maybe it just appeals to the shooters out there but the story is very intriguing. The secondary plot of the bad guys was just scary in its possibility. I highly recommend.
However, Bridges narration suffered from him trying to make everyone gravel voiced.

A good early effort

I got this book because I had read other books by the author, and because I enjoyed the movie Shooter. Typically, the book is better than the movie - but not so in this case.

First - I didn't like the production. Beau did okay (not great), but whoever decided to occasionally (and erratically) add sound effects should not have been involved. The sound effects were so infrequent, yet so attention grabbing, that it distracted from the performance.

The book is pretty much a short-story. The author missed many opportunities to develop characters and add depth to the story, but he was in too much of a hurry to work his way through the plot. This is typical for an author's early efforts, but it still counts against the book.

I plan on reading other books by Mr. Hunter, but would recommend this one only to provide historical insight to his writings.