Books >
Soft Target

Soft Target Browse Inside Soft Target
Soft Target
A Thriller  
By Stephen Hunter
This edition: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Availability: Ships on or around May 29, 2012
List Price: $15.00
Your Price: $12.00 You Save $3.00 (20%)
Pre Order or Buy from another online retailer
Also available in

National Bestseller

New York Times® Bestseller

Description


Black Friday America’s largest shopping mall Suburban Minneapolis 3:00 P.M.

Ten thousand people jam the aisles and the escalators of America, the Mall—a giant structure with its own amusement park located in the spacious center atrium. Of those people, nine thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight have come to shop.

The other twelve have come to kill.

Stephen Hunter’s hyper-drive, eighth-gear thriller chronicles the day when the unthinkable happens: terrorists descend upon the heartland, opening fire in mall corridors and executing innocent victims one by one. Those on the upper floors, including retired Marine sniper Ray Cruz, take cover or get out any way they can, but within minutes the gunmen have rounded up more than a thousand hostages, and the story comes down to one man with a gun.

Except Ray doesn’t have a gun.
“Stephen Hunter spent years reviewing movies for The Washington Post. That work gave him a keen sense of pacing and timing. The evidence shows up in Soft Target, which unrolls a complicated and grabby plot in just 256 tense pages. And Hunter packs in a surprise with the identity and motive of the individual behind the terrorist attack.”
-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Hunter’s writing is sharp, detailed and laced with enough offhand wit to keep readers from sinking into the general gore and Islam-bashing. . . . Hunter has produced a fast, gratifying read.”
-- The Houston Chronicle
“A solid addition to Stephen Hunter’s sniper series, made more engaging by its invocation of current events and political posturing. I join his other fans in hoping he has another one already in the works.”
-- The Washington Times
“Stephen Hunter didn’t invent the high-action thriller. But, as he once again demonstrates in the lightning-paced Soft Target, he might as well have. . . . Soft Target is Die Hard with a brain and a plan. A lean, action-packed tale that begs to be read in a single sitting.”
-- The Providence Journal
“Fast-paced…fearsome.”
-- Publishers Weekly
“Combining elements of the locked-room mystery, the disaster novel, and the lock-and-load thriller, Hunter produces a remarkably gripping tale, building character (the captives, the bureaucrats, and the “terrorists” all get compelling backstories) every bit as convincingly as he drives the narrative to its High Noon--style finale.”
-- Booklist (starred review)
“Any thriller in which Middle Eastern terrorists whack Santa on the first page is bound to be exciting. As always, Hunter has crafted a fast-paced and all-too-plausible telling of our worst nightmares coming true. Ray Cruz is a worthy successor to Swagger. Hunter’s fans, along with new readers, will enjoy the violent battle between Cruz and the bad guys.”
-- Library Journal
“Black Friday [is] on the cusp of becoming blood-soaked Friday. . . . Among the shoppers, albeit reluctantly, is Ray Cruz, a retired marine sniper, son of the iconic marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger, whose valorous exploits Hunter has richly detailed (Dead Zero, 2010, etc.). . . . Snipers and SWAT teams gather, but only one man is in an advantageous tactical position, behind enemy lines, as it were. Only one man, but he’s Bob Lee Swagger’s son, and what a good thing it is that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.”
-- Kirkus Reviews
This makes my hair (what there is) stand on end!
KSEN AM 1150, December 8, 2011
...9,988 have come to shop. The other 12 have come to kill! It’s all here in Stephen Hunter’s hyper-drive, 8th gear new thriller, “Soft Target” and Stephen is my special guest tomorrow (Friday) afternoon at 4:30 on the Puffman Show. ...
BOOK REVIEW: 'Soft Target'
Washington Times, December 7, 2011
...SOFT TARGETBy Stephen HunterSimon & Schuster, $26.99, 254 pages Stephen Hunter is a prizewinning journalist who, until his recent retirement, was chief movie critic for . In addition, for about three decades, Mr. Hunter has moonlighted as a ...
When terrorists set sights on a mall
Washington Times, December 6, 2011
...SOFT TARGET By Stephen Hunter Simon & Schuster, $26.99, 254 pages Reviewed by Ray Hartwell Stephen Hunter is a prizewinning journalist who, until his recent retirement, was chief movie critic ...
Stephen Hunter: Soft Target
Houston Press, December 5, 2011
...Black Friday and America’s biggest mall is jammed with 10,000 shoppers — and 12 terrorists. In Soft Target, the new thriller by Pulitzer Prize (for film criticism) winner Stephen Hunter, just three men stand between certain death for the ...
Local book events: Dec. 4-10
Houston Chronicle, December 4, 2011
...Wednesday (Dec. 7), Community Artists’ Collective, Midtown Art Center Tea Room, 1413 Holman; 713-524-3027 or thecollective.org. • Stephen Hunter will sign and discuss Soft Target, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday (Dec. 7), Murder By The Book, 2342 ...
Stephen Hunter's Books
Displaying 1 of
See All Stephen Hunter books