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Earl Swagger #2
Pale Horse Coming
The Year is 1951. A smooth-talking Chicago lawyer has come to chat with Sam Vincent, a former prosecutor, about a dangerous unknown - a prison for violent black convicts in Thebes, Mississippi, a place of many questions but no answers. Would Sam, a white man and a Southerner, be willing to investigate?
When Sam vanishes in the mists and swamps, his old friend Earl Swagger packs his gun and heads to Thebes where he discovers sinister secrets that go far beyond the prison walls. The whole town guards itself from nosy strangers with a private army of brutal, gun-toting, Klan-type thugs and rednecks. After barely escaping, Earl vows to right things and reclaim Thebes from the throes of a sinister conspiracy.
But first, he enlists just a little help from his friends. Featuring the same fast-paced action and page-turning thrills that made Hot Springs a heart-stopping bestseller, Pale Horse Coming is a triumphant successor.
When Sam vanishes in the mists and swamps, his old friend Earl Swagger packs his gun and heads to Thebes where he discovers sinister secrets that go far beyond the prison walls. The whole town guards itself from nosy strangers with a private army of brutal, gun-toting, Klan-type thugs and rednecks. After barely escaping, Earl vows to right things and reclaim Thebes from the throes of a sinister conspiracy.
But first, he enlists just a little help from his friends. Featuring the same fast-paced action and page-turning thrills that made Hot Springs a heart-stopping bestseller, Pale Horse Coming is a triumphant successor.
Paperback
First published October 9, 2001
About the author
Stephen Hunter
98 books1,871 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Stephen Hunter is the author of fourteen novels, and a chief film critic at The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Stephen Hunter is the author of fourteen novels, and a chief film critic at The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 260 reviews
January 15, 2013
"Pale Horse Coming" is Stephen Hunter's finest hour. While he is an excellent author who never fails to entertain, most of his other work pales in comparison to this masterpiece which is essentially a retelling of "The Magnificent Seven" filtered through Hunter's mega-macho and gun-centric writing techniques. In a Stephen Hunter novel, justice almost always comes from the barrel of the gun; in this case, it comes from the barrels of multiple guns as Earl Swagger rounds up a bunch of fellow bullet-blasting bad-asses and sets out to destroy a cesspool of evil and the vicious monsters who rule it.
Some have accused Hunter of only writing fantasies for "gun nuts," guys who cream their shorts at the thought of engaging in two-fisted firefights with the scumsucking villains & vermain of the world. And those who make such allegations don't miss the bulls-eye by much...but so what? Novels--at least novels of this type--need be nothing more than escapism, and that's what "Pale Horse Coming" offers in bucketfuls. For action-thriller fans who like it bigger than life, over-the-top, and bloody as hell--and yet remarkably well-written--it does not get much better than this.
Earl Swagger is a man's man, a soft-spoken southern boy with boulder-size balls who prefers to let his guns talk more than his mouth and who insists on doing the right thing every time, consequences be damned. The world would probably be a better place if there were more folks like Earl Swagger living in it, but one thing is for sure, the literary world is definitely a better place because Stephen Hunter is living in it and you need look no further than "Pale Horse Coming" for proof.
Some have accused Hunter of only writing fantasies for "gun nuts," guys who cream their shorts at the thought of engaging in two-fisted firefights with the scumsucking villains & vermain of the world. And those who make such allegations don't miss the bulls-eye by much...but so what? Novels--at least novels of this type--need be nothing more than escapism, and that's what "Pale Horse Coming" offers in bucketfuls. For action-thriller fans who like it bigger than life, over-the-top, and bloody as hell--and yet remarkably well-written--it does not get much better than this.
Earl Swagger is a man's man, a soft-spoken southern boy with boulder-size balls who prefers to let his guns talk more than his mouth and who insists on doing the right thing every time, consequences be damned. The world would probably be a better place if there were more folks like Earl Swagger living in it, but one thing is for sure, the literary world is definitely a better place because Stephen Hunter is living in it and you need look no further than "Pale Horse Coming" for proof.
March 1, 2024
I did just read this, but I may have to concede to this novel the title of My Favorite Stephen Hunter Novel©. Earl’s good buddy Sam Vincent (the lawyer we met in the earlier Black Light...or was it Point of Impact?) has disappeared at the super-mysterious, super-ominous Thebes State Penal Farm (Colored) while on a mission to find a disappeared person for a client. Because Earl is a good friend of Sam’s and just an extremely goodhearted yet utterly badass type of dude he decides to go up to Thebes (accessible only by boat or a hellacious trek through swamp) and find out what happened to Sam and what the hell exactly is going on up there.
Well there’s a lot of mysteries to Thebes that I would never dream of spoiling but I can comfortably state that it’s a really terrible fucking place, basically a concentration work camp solely for black inmates run by an institution that is like the hick Third Reich all over again. Life is extremely cheap at Thebes and always ends unpleasantly. For chrissakes, the staff goes solely by monikers like the Warden, Bigboy or Section Boss. I could go on and on about what an intense, dark and powerful setting for a thriller Thebes is but you get the point. It’s just the perfect hellhole to put a dude with an unerring moral compass and seemingly god-given gift for violence like Earl Swagger in. There’s generations of wrongs to be put right and you know they will be and through unwaveringly violent means.
That’s where the novel, fun bit of this book comes in. It’s a straight up “Limited But Specific Number of Hard Dudes” type scenario. See Seven Samurai, its western counterpart The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, etc. (That reminds me...you guys see The Hateful Eight? So awesome.) You got your slow-burn recruitment of the assorted skill sets and personalities, the pre-battle speeches, all of that good stuff. It of course goes without saying that because this is a Stephen Hunter novel it all builds up to a super-slick climax with the usual big ending shootout replaced with like three or four, which was awesome. Yeah...this is pretty much dude fiction, but written with verve and style and intensity.
Well there’s a lot of mysteries to Thebes that I would never dream of spoiling but I can comfortably state that it’s a really terrible fucking place, basically a concentration work camp solely for black inmates run by an institution that is like the hick Third Reich all over again. Life is extremely cheap at Thebes and always ends unpleasantly. For chrissakes, the staff goes solely by monikers like the Warden, Bigboy or Section Boss. I could go on and on about what an intense, dark and powerful setting for a thriller Thebes is but you get the point. It’s just the perfect hellhole to put a dude with an unerring moral compass and seemingly god-given gift for violence like Earl Swagger in. There’s generations of wrongs to be put right and you know they will be and through unwaveringly violent means.
That’s where the novel, fun bit of this book comes in. It’s a straight up “Limited But Specific Number of Hard Dudes” type scenario. See Seven Samurai, its western counterpart The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, etc. (That reminds me...you guys see The Hateful Eight? So awesome.) You got your slow-burn recruitment of the assorted skill sets and personalities, the pre-battle speeches, all of that good stuff. It of course goes without saying that because this is a Stephen Hunter novel it all builds up to a super-slick climax with the usual big ending shootout replaced with like three or four, which was awesome. Yeah...this is pretty much dude fiction, but written with verve and style and intensity.
April 24, 2016
As the Swagger novels have gone on the quality has declined. Which is a fairly common thing with all long running series. Be it novels, television, movies etc. "Pale Horse Coming" isn't one of Hunter's better novels, but there are aspects that I liked. As others have pointed out this is "Cool Hand Luke" meets the "Magnificent Seven" with a little bit of William Faulkner thrown in for good measure.
The book is written in the style of the tough crime fiction of the 1950's. If you doubt it find yourself some old back issues of "True" and "Argosy" magazines and read the short stories. Hunter is very faithful in that respect and I suspect this is what turns off some folks. The old pulp fiction of the time was heavy on the testosterone and the refined tastes of many readers in 2013 don't like it. So you have been warned.
The dialogue is a bit overblown as are some of the characters. There are times when the writing approaches the level of parody, but the subject matter is serious and treated as such - which keeps it from stepping off the edge.
Hunter is a gun enthusiast. A lifelong gun enthusiast. The gunmen that Earl gathers for his return to Thebes are thinly disguised versions of Elmer Keith, Bill Jordan, Ed McGivern, Charles Askins, Jack O'Connor and Audie Murphy. For many readers the only name that will probably be recognizable is that of Audie Murphy. However for those who are firmly embedded in the American Gun Culture and particularly those who have an interest in the bygone days of American shooters (such as me) those other men are famous.
Legendary would probably not be too strong of a word actually. I have no doubt that Stephen Hunter grew up reading the many books and articles that were written by those men and I have no doubt they influenced him. In "Pale Horse Coming" Hunter takes his boyhood heroes and has them join his creation in a grand, righteous adventure. Being a collector of classic firearms as well as a collector of the old gun periodicals I enjoyed this aspect of the novel. Actually I greatly enjoyed this part of the story.
So there you go. A violent,fun,Gothic, macho noir, adventure/action novel with a little history thrown in. William Faulkner meets Mickey Spillane and Louis L'Amour at a luncheon sponsored by the National Rifle Association with an after dinner speech by the NAACP. It's isn't great literature, but it will keep you interested.
The book is written in the style of the tough crime fiction of the 1950's. If you doubt it find yourself some old back issues of "True" and "Argosy" magazines and read the short stories. Hunter is very faithful in that respect and I suspect this is what turns off some folks. The old pulp fiction of the time was heavy on the testosterone and the refined tastes of many readers in 2013 don't like it. So you have been warned.
The dialogue is a bit overblown as are some of the characters. There are times when the writing approaches the level of parody, but the subject matter is serious and treated as such - which keeps it from stepping off the edge.
Hunter is a gun enthusiast. A lifelong gun enthusiast. The gunmen that Earl gathers for his return to Thebes are thinly disguised versions of Elmer Keith, Bill Jordan, Ed McGivern, Charles Askins, Jack O'Connor and Audie Murphy. For many readers the only name that will probably be recognizable is that of Audie Murphy. However for those who are firmly embedded in the American Gun Culture and particularly those who have an interest in the bygone days of American shooters (such as me) those other men are famous.
Legendary would probably not be too strong of a word actually. I have no doubt that Stephen Hunter grew up reading the many books and articles that were written by those men and I have no doubt they influenced him. In "Pale Horse Coming" Hunter takes his boyhood heroes and has them join his creation in a grand, righteous adventure. Being a collector of classic firearms as well as a collector of the old gun periodicals I enjoyed this aspect of the novel. Actually I greatly enjoyed this part of the story.
So there you go. A violent,fun,Gothic, macho noir, adventure/action novel with a little history thrown in. William Faulkner meets Mickey Spillane and Louis L'Amour at a luncheon sponsored by the National Rifle Association with an after dinner speech by the NAACP. It's isn't great literature, but it will keep you interested.
February 6, 2013
Just fabulous! 10 of 10 stars
August 2, 2011
Mythic and elegant and poetical in language, though deadly earnest in its violence and means of dealing with violence, this book just touched me on all kinds of levels more than just the "thriller". It seamlessly blends the myths of the Deep Dark South with that of the cowboy and fast shooters of the West, and I loved how, underlying it all was the root-stock of Oedipus' third play -- Seven Against Thebes, the same stock that upheld "The Magnificent Seven" and "Seven Samurai".
It's odd to read this before Black Light and find the younger Sam Vincent and Earl so much more in this book than they are when portrayed later on in life: more epic, but also more human, more afraid and courageous for it than in the oddly cleaner "Black Light". Here everything is far more visceral and gut-wrenching, especially in the first half of the book. I had a much harder time reading the first half than I did the second.
The moral choices Earl and Sam make are telling, and extremely hard ones, especially given the situations they go through, and I couldn't help but cheer Earl on.
I do give a lot of four stars, but not many fives. This one deserves it for the characters, the utter insanity of the situation, and later on in the utmost and loving detail of the weapons, ammunition, and gun choices of the characters involved in the second half. I love it when you can tell what a character is made of by their choices, and the choices the men make, all of their own initiative, are all telling.
It's odd to read this before Black Light and find the younger Sam Vincent and Earl so much more in this book than they are when portrayed later on in life: more epic, but also more human, more afraid and courageous for it than in the oddly cleaner "Black Light". Here everything is far more visceral and gut-wrenching, especially in the first half of the book. I had a much harder time reading the first half than I did the second.
The moral choices Earl and Sam make are telling, and extremely hard ones, especially given the situations they go through, and I couldn't help but cheer Earl on.
I do give a lot of four stars, but not many fives. This one deserves it for the characters, the utter insanity of the situation, and later on in the utmost and loving detail of the weapons, ammunition, and gun choices of the characters involved in the second half. I love it when you can tell what a character is made of by their choices, and the choices the men make, all of their own initiative, are all telling.
July 22, 2023
This has got to be one of my favorite Stephen Hunter books as well as one of my favorite reads. I am a sucker for the old "Magnificent Seven" set-up - which Stephen Hunter uses in this novel with amazing ease. Definitely will raise your testosterone level after a single reading. You will begin to smell funny and thump on your chest at unexpected moments. I recommend this for anyone who wants to read a good old-fashioned no-nonsense shoot-em-up. There is enough in here to please a fan of action, war, western and all around tough guy fiction. I recommend it highly.
February 13, 2009
I would describe this book as the movies Missing in Action, The Pelican Brief and the Magnificent Seven all rolled into one fantastic story. I picked this book up at a thrift store because it looked interesting. I was greatly surprised. This is a terrific book, with well developed characters. I really liked the fact that Hunter used biographies of real life, well-known gunmen of the 20th century. He changed the last names Elmer Kieth aka: Elmer McKay, Jack O'Conner aka: Jack O'Brien and Audie Murphy aka: Audie Ryan. What a great twist. I actually knew Elmer Keith when I was a young lad. He is from my home town of Salmon, Idaho. Jack O'Conner also lived in Northern Idaho.
February 28, 2010
This is a very violent book. Part of the violence is to right an injustice where, in the Mississippi of 1951, there is a horrible prison for black men called Thebes State Penal Farm, located in the swamps, almost impossible to reach, except by water. A lawyer friend of Earl Swagger goes there to get some information for a client, and Earl bails him out of trouble, but then can't forget the awful conditions, and rounds up six more gunfighters to go back to Thebes, set the prisoners free, and tear it down. Two strong enemies are Section Boss, and Bigman, an albino of incredible strength.
November 10, 2012
James Lee Burke is by far my #1 author, ever. But damn if Stephen Hunter might give him a run for the money.
December 11, 2013
Soooooo homoerotic.
Soooo melodramatic.
There are a lot of problems with Earl Swagger. He's supposed to be a "John Wayne type" (not my description, characters in the books actually tell him that to his face -- over and over!) But there are so many ways in which the tough Arkansas lawman never rings true.
How come he's a Southerner who refuses to endorse Civil Rights for blacks, but yet he's always somehow punishing racist whites? It's like he'll do anything for blacks but admit that things have to change.
How come he's got a wife June whom he "loves" but there's never any sign of affection or physical passion or even basic friendship between them? He keeps calling her "ma'am" and instead of being gracious it sounds faintly creepy, like he's desperate to keep her at arms length.
Well. Having said all that, other Swagger books are better than this one. HAVANA and HOT SPRINGS are both good because Earl has a specific mission and the gun battles are believable within the place and time.
The problem with PALE HORSE COMING is that Earl Swagger is being elevated to demi-god status. I mean, overturning an entire prison and bringing thousands of black prisoners back from the dead? And again you sense the born racist trying desperately to make his hero politically correct. Oh, and check out the vicious albino guard Earl has to beat up over and over -- to prove he's not judging people in ways that are all about skin color. I think.
After a certain point the whole thing just becomes comical.
Soooo melodramatic.
There are a lot of problems with Earl Swagger. He's supposed to be a "John Wayne type" (not my description, characters in the books actually tell him that to his face -- over and over!) But there are so many ways in which the tough Arkansas lawman never rings true.
How come he's a Southerner who refuses to endorse Civil Rights for blacks, but yet he's always somehow punishing racist whites? It's like he'll do anything for blacks but admit that things have to change.
How come he's got a wife June whom he "loves" but there's never any sign of affection or physical passion or even basic friendship between them? He keeps calling her "ma'am" and instead of being gracious it sounds faintly creepy, like he's desperate to keep her at arms length.
Well. Having said all that, other Swagger books are better than this one. HAVANA and HOT SPRINGS are both good because Earl has a specific mission and the gun battles are believable within the place and time.
The problem with PALE HORSE COMING is that Earl Swagger is being elevated to demi-god status. I mean, overturning an entire prison and bringing thousands of black prisoners back from the dead? And again you sense the born racist trying desperately to make his hero politically correct. Oh, and check out the vicious albino guard Earl has to beat up over and over -- to prove he's not judging people in ways that are all about skin color. I think.
After a certain point the whole thing just becomes comical.
March 22, 2013
As much as I love stories about Bob Lee Swagger, I gotta admit, his father kicks even better ass and he is old school. A great series and I think this one is my favorite of all the Earl books. I love the time period and the characters.
November 8, 2019
Disappointing follow up to Hot Springs. I can suspend disbelief once or twice at the start of a story but this just keeps getting nuttier as it goes along. That could be okay if it is meant to be humorous, but this is extraordinarily dark and trying to be very serious about a slew of real problems.
February 7, 2013
The first book I read by Stephen Hunter was extremely good, a lot of suspense, I could not put it down. So I had equally high expectations for this one. It is an almost classic tale of vengeance. Our hero Earl Swagger goes down south to a penal farm, to find a friend that has disappeared while investigating the whereabouts of a client. He barely gets away with his life and sanity intact and swears to come back to give them hell. He gathers some tough and trigger happy gunmen around him and they go back. So far so good.
I really liked the first half of the book, up to the point when he escapes from the penal farm. But then it gets pretty weird. The gun fighters are just too over the top and I think he tries too hard to make them all these unusual characters. But what puts me off the most is probably the style the book is written in. It is set in the 1950s and written like that. Fair enough, he tries to create the correct athmosphere. I just don’t like it, it keeps me dropping out of the story because it feels so unrealistic to me. So basically a good book, but just a bit too weird to be really great.
I really liked the first half of the book, up to the point when he escapes from the penal farm. But then it gets pretty weird. The gun fighters are just too over the top and I think he tries too hard to make them all these unusual characters. But what puts me off the most is probably the style the book is written in. It is set in the 1950s and written like that. Fair enough, he tries to create the correct athmosphere. I just don’t like it, it keeps me dropping out of the story because it feels so unrealistic to me. So basically a good book, but just a bit too weird to be really great.
May 28, 2019
A fast, fun action thriller that is great on its own terms, but is a bit problematic on a larger scale.
As is the norm with Hunter, the gun stuff is fantastic, and I don't just mean the action. Chapter 55, where the old men prepare for war, may be the best thing he ever wrote. And he's won a Pulitzer.
The action is great and the story is well-told, but this is where the ground gets shaky. There are some serious Great White Savior vibes here, cruel white villains not withstanding. Then, there's Hunter's woman problem; he loves and respects women, but seems mostly unable to think of them as warriors themselves. He uses them as assets, certainly, and they save the men's bacon a fair few times, but they are support class all the way. It's not awful, but some may be displeased. I'm torn on what he does here, but he does it well.
As usual, Hunter turns in a solid action-thriller. There may be thematic issues, but the mechanics are sound at the very least. Great stuff for fans.
As is the norm with Hunter, the gun stuff is fantastic, and I don't just mean the action. Chapter 55, where the old men prepare for war, may be the best thing he ever wrote. And he's won a Pulitzer.
The action is great and the story is well-told, but this is where the ground gets shaky. There are some serious Great White Savior vibes here, cruel white villains not withstanding. Then, there's Hunter's woman problem; he loves and respects women, but seems mostly unable to think of them as warriors themselves. He uses them as assets, certainly, and they save the men's bacon a fair few times, but they are support class all the way. It's not awful, but some may be displeased. I'm torn on what he does here, but he does it well.
As usual, Hunter turns in a solid action-thriller. There may be thematic issues, but the mechanics are sound at the very least. Great stuff for fans.
May 10, 2012
This is the April Madison Mystery, Ink bookclub choice. Overall, I got into the book. Since body count is one of the topics discussed in the bookclub, I will have to say that there is a pretty high body count in this book (at least compared with all the other books I've read so far for this bookclub). For me, I got lost in all of the gun descriptions - I'm not a gun expert by any means so I know that I didn't understand the pokes and jabs made by the different people concerning the different gun makers. I did like the sense of justice, even though illegal, in the book. As for the characters, some were very memorable - and I hope that there really isn't a Bigboy out there in the real world.
February 23, 2024
I don't know what it is about the "Lone-wolf" hero, but these stories have a tremendous appeal to me...Travis McGhee, Jack Reacher and Doc Ford among others...this is the 2nd of the Earl Swagger stories...I've read #'s 1 & 3 and much like Max Allen Collin's Nate Heller series, Hunter works in the era's famous into the storyline...This one deals with a Mississippi prison camp also involved in biological research imposed on the black inmates...great action and revenge…Way Better than the first Earl, “Hot Springs!”
October 29, 2010
Believable? Maybe.
I found myself changing my mind about duty to country without question. You would like to think you could support anything your country does (as in the best interest of the country), but this makes you rethink that.
The "mission" of the government meant that everything else was being overlooked. This book showed just what evil can come out when men are being protected from their acts.
I found myself changing my mind about duty to country without question. You would like to think you could support anything your country does (as in the best interest of the country), but this makes you rethink that.
The "mission" of the government meant that everything else was being overlooked. This book showed just what evil can come out when men are being protected from their acts.
April 4, 2014
This was the first one of the books about Bob Lee's father that I read. I had read most of the Bob Lee books and never really thought that the books about his father would be as good but I was wrong.
This book is very good and has lost of action and the great story line that you expect from Stephan Hunter.
I highly recommend it for any Bob Lee fans.
This book is very good and has lost of action and the great story line that you expect from Stephan Hunter.
I highly recommend it for any Bob Lee fans.
July 23, 2009
Earl Swagger is temporarily stuck in an illegal prison deep in the south. He manages to escape with the aid of an old black man he thought was the prison snitch, presumed drowned in the swamp, and promises to return and free all.
He's the Pale Horse of the title.
He's the Pale Horse of the title.
February 9, 2010
Very graphic, but an action packed page turner. Not my typical book, but so happy I read it! If anyone has seen Shooter with Mark Wahlberg, this is by the same author/series.
October 7, 2011
intensely violent...at times, offensive....but difficult to put down, and even harder to forget.
January 13, 2012
Very excellent contiunation of the Earl Swagger saga. We get to learn a lot more about Sam here as well. Earl is still one of the Baddest Asses around.
July 23, 2013
Excellent book!! Best Stephen hunter book I've read yet
August 23, 2022
Earl Swagger’s back, and this time he’s sent to the darkest heart of the Deep South to rescue his buddy Sam from a hellish penal colony.
It turns out Earl’s lawyer buddy was in a swampish backwater called Thebes, snooping on behalf of a client trying to find a missing person. But Thebes is full of secrets, dark and closely guarded, which the prison staff is more than willing to kill to preserve.
Pale Horse Coming could perhaps best be described as Cool Hand Luke Meets The Island of Dr. Moreau. The novel really comes alive in those sections that take place on the prison farm. Author Stephen Hunter hits his sublime stride describing sadistic guards and a postbellum Dixie aristocracy gone to seed. One of the guards at Thebes—a morbidly obese albino with a whip—is almost worthy of Cormac McCarthy.
Hunter’s on shakier ground, though, unspooling a siege operation executed by a handful of old cowboys trying to wipe Thebes from the face of the earth. There’s something about the plucky Hoppy Cassidy escapades that doesn’t just jar, but feels somehow false, corny. The Audie Murphy stand-in (really) and cowboy so old he needs his daughter to mash his food (really) who are conscripted to fight only underline this passage’s ridiculous nature.
Also, the novel’s denouement, involving a Tuskegee-like series of experiments, can be seen from a mile off, and feels rushed on top of that. Finally, the most grating part of Hunter’s style is the Clancy-esque fetishizing of all the hardware. I like guns, and understand their beauty as much as their necessity in a fallen world. But when you’re giving as much attention to the capacity of your mags to your characterization of your principals, the train has gone off the rails.
It turns out Earl’s lawyer buddy was in a swampish backwater called Thebes, snooping on behalf of a client trying to find a missing person. But Thebes is full of secrets, dark and closely guarded, which the prison staff is more than willing to kill to preserve.
Pale Horse Coming could perhaps best be described as Cool Hand Luke Meets The Island of Dr. Moreau. The novel really comes alive in those sections that take place on the prison farm. Author Stephen Hunter hits his sublime stride describing sadistic guards and a postbellum Dixie aristocracy gone to seed. One of the guards at Thebes—a morbidly obese albino with a whip—is almost worthy of Cormac McCarthy.
Hunter’s on shakier ground, though, unspooling a siege operation executed by a handful of old cowboys trying to wipe Thebes from the face of the earth. There’s something about the plucky Hoppy Cassidy escapades that doesn’t just jar, but feels somehow false, corny. The Audie Murphy stand-in (really) and cowboy so old he needs his daughter to mash his food (really) who are conscripted to fight only underline this passage’s ridiculous nature.
Also, the novel’s denouement, involving a Tuskegee-like series of experiments, can be seen from a mile off, and feels rushed on top of that. Finally, the most grating part of Hunter’s style is the Clancy-esque fetishizing of all the hardware. I like guns, and understand their beauty as much as their necessity in a fallen world. But when you’re giving as much attention to the capacity of your mags to your characterization of your principals, the train has gone off the rails.
December 25, 2022
A magnificent book!
July 20, 2023
Book club book. Good but not a must read
February 4, 2017
Hunter has created a very believable crusader in Earl Swagger.
Sam Vincent, Earl's mentor, has been retained by an attorney to find an heir, who is a black man. The search takes Sam to a prison for blacks deep in the Mississippi swamp. Remember this is Mississippi 1951. As one might expect, Sam doesn't return. So off Earl goes to the rescue. Earl would have had Sam safe at home in no time, but due to Sam ridicules request that Earl kills no one, things go to hell in a hand basket. You have an army of men who would kill you in a heartbeat, sic the dogs on you and laugh while they tear you to pieces. Not kill anyone....what planet is Sam from. This is only the beginning, things just get better.
The part I don't like is once again Earl leaves his family...them not knowing if he will ever make it back. The sad part is it gets to the point that he may not make it back, sometimes he doesn't care.
This is not fair to Junie or Bob Lee. His family plays second fiddle to the call of the wild that Earl hears and just can't say no to.
Sam Vincent, Earl's mentor, has been retained by an attorney to find an heir, who is a black man. The search takes Sam to a prison for blacks deep in the Mississippi swamp. Remember this is Mississippi 1951. As one might expect, Sam doesn't return. So off Earl goes to the rescue. Earl would have had Sam safe at home in no time, but due to Sam ridicules request that Earl kills no one, things go to hell in a hand basket. You have an army of men who would kill you in a heartbeat, sic the dogs on you and laugh while they tear you to pieces. Not kill anyone....what planet is Sam from. This is only the beginning, things just get better.
The part I don't like is once again Earl leaves his family...them not knowing if he will ever make it back. The sad part is it gets to the point that he may not make it back, sometimes he doesn't care.
This is not fair to Junie or Bob Lee. His family plays second fiddle to the call of the wild that Earl hears and just can't say no to.
October 22, 2015
3 1/2 stars. Lots of action. Hunter's take on The Magnificent Seven with a Tuskegee experiment type prison deal blended in along with tons of gunplay
January 6, 2016
This was the second Stephen Hunter book I've read (fantastic Dirty White Boys), but it won't be the last. Though the book was 500-plus pages, I blew through it in about four days. Couldn't put it down. I agree with another reviewer about 100 pages or so that were unnecessary (boring dialogue, lengthy descriptions, etc.). Still, it was a fun read about a black penal colony stuck in the Mississippi swamp. Our hero Earl Swagger finds himself on a righteous mission and enlists a motley group of gunslingers to help him in his quest to right a grievous wrong. I especially enjoyed learning about this possibly very real and savage penitentiary. My least favorite thing about this book was the often clichéd dialogue, which didn't always ring true. Still, it's a book for anyone who likes a rollicking, fun adventure, replete with lots of violence and gore.
May 19, 2013
I'm not a gun enthusiast. I didn't know the history of the guns or the gunslingers. I suspected it was similar to some movies I'd seen on TV years ago, but so what, all stories borrow from somewhere.
I like it in a story when men are hard and hard hitting and that they like seeing strength in the women around them as well. I like it when injustice is rooted out and the underdogs are vanguished. I like it when there's lots of violence that's done in the work of justice. I like it when that's all wrapped up in a good story, and that the words flow nicely together. It can, but it does not have to, surprise me.
Pale Horse Coming met all those requirements and it was really satisfying to me.
I like it in a story when men are hard and hard hitting and that they like seeing strength in the women around them as well. I like it when injustice is rooted out and the underdogs are vanguished. I like it when there's lots of violence that's done in the work of justice. I like it when that's all wrapped up in a good story, and that the words flow nicely together. It can, but it does not have to, surprise me.
Pale Horse Coming met all those requirements and it was really satisfying to me.
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