The Third Bullet
A Bob Lee Swagger Novel
Bob Lee Swagger is back in a thriller fifty years in the making . . .
It’s not even a clue. It’s a whisper, a trace, a ghost echo, drifting down through the decades via chance connections so fragile that they would disintegrate in the puff of a breath. But it’s enough to get legendary former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger interested in the events of November 22, 1963, and the third bullet that so decisively ended the life of John F. Kennedy and set the stage for one of the most enduring controversies of our time.
Swagger begins his slow night stalk through a much-traveled landscape. But he’s asking questions that few have asked before: Why did the third bullet explode? Why did Lee Harvey Oswald, about to become the most hunted man on earth, risk it all by returning to his rooming house to secure a pistol he easily could have brought with him? How could a conspiracy that went unpenetrated for fifty years have been thrown together in the two and a half days between the announcement of the president’s route and the assassination itself?
As Bob investigates, another voice enters the narrative: knowing, ironic, almost familiar, that of a gifted, Yale-educated veteran of the CIA Plans Division. Hugh Meachum has secrets and the means and the will to keep them buried. When weighed against his own legacy, Swagger’s life is an insignificant expense—but to blunt the threat, he’ll first have to ambush the sniper.
As each man hunts the other across today’s globe and through the thickets of history, The Third Bullet builds to an explosive climax that will finally prove what Bob Lee Swagger has always known: it’s never too late for justice.
It’s not even a clue. It’s a whisper, a trace, a ghost echo, drifting down through the decades via chance connections so fragile that they would disintegrate in the puff of a breath. But it’s enough to get legendary former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger interested in the events of November 22, 1963, and the third bullet that so decisively ended the life of John F. Kennedy and set the stage for one of the most enduring controversies of our time.
Swagger begins his slow night stalk through a much-traveled landscape. But he’s asking questions that few have asked before: Why did the third bullet explode? Why did Lee Harvey Oswald, about to become the most hunted man on earth, risk it all by returning to his rooming house to secure a pistol he easily could have brought with him? How could a conspiracy that went unpenetrated for fifty years have been thrown together in the two and a half days between the announcement of the president’s route and the assassination itself?
As Bob investigates, another voice enters the narrative: knowing, ironic, almost familiar, that of a gifted, Yale-educated veteran of the CIA Plans Division. Hugh Meachum has secrets and the means and the will to keep them buried. When weighed against his own legacy, Swagger’s life is an insignificant expense—but to blunt the threat, he’ll first have to ambush the sniper.
As each man hunts the other across today’s globe and through the thickets of history, The Third Bullet builds to an explosive climax that will finally prove what Bob Lee Swagger has always known: it’s never too late for justice.
Choose a format:
Buy from us:
- Simon & Schuster |
- 496 pages |
- ISBN 9781451640205 |
- January 2013
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Praise
“The Swagger novel we've all been waiting for, and the Swagger novel Stephen Hunter was born to write . . . a magnificent thriller--and it might even be true.”
– Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Wanted Man and The Affair
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“The Swagger novel we've all been waiting for, and the Swagger novel Stephen Hunter was born to write . . . a magnificent thriller--and it might even be true.”– Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Wanted Man and The Affair
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“Like an elite sniper, Stephen Hunter zeroes in on one of the most infamous shots ever fired and delivers a mind-bending thriller that answers the question ‘What if?’ in astonishingly plausible detail. The Third Bullet... ”– Vince Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Kill Shot
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“Former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger tackles the granddaddy of all conspiracy theories--the 1963 Kennedy assassination--in his latest adventure. . . . The author’s obsessive attention to the events of Nov. 22 yields a... ”– Entertainment Weekly
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“Hunter is extremely well-versed on guns and ballistics, and Swagger is nothing short of a legend. . . . it’ll be catnip to conspiracy-minded readers . . . The whole thing ends with a shootout in rural Connecticut that's so... ”– Washington Post
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“Hunter’s action-packed new thriller, The Third Bullet . . . introduces a shockingly plausible alternative to the Lee Harvey Oswald-‘lone gunman’ explanation.”– Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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“For nearly 50 years, the world has been obsessing over the assassination of JFK, from grassy knolls to magic bullets. Finally, though, there’s somebody on the case who likes to act more than talk: Bob Lee Swagger. . . . like... ”– Booklist (starred review)
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“Bestseller Hunter’s solid eighth thriller featuring master sniper Bob Lee Swagger . . . plunges into the byzantine world of conspiracy theory. Hunter develops some new angles on the JFK assassination.”– Publishers Weekly
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“Some of Hunter’s best writing can be found here, along with new revelations about Swagger . . . . Then, of course, there is the investigation into Kennedy’s death on that fateful day in Dallas and its conclusions.... ”– Bookreporter.com
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“The Third Bullet is as riveting as it is ambitious. It's Stephen Hunter's best so far.”– Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Drop and The Black Box
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“Stephen Hunter is the bullseye ace of the modern thriller, a cerebral mix of mystery, blood, brutality, treachery and suspense. The Third Bullet is Hunter at the absolute apex of his art. Come on--it's time to hunt!”– Stephen Coonts, New York Times bestselling author of The Disciple
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“One of the hardest things for a writer to do is establish an identity, but there is no mistaking Stephen Hunter’s thrillers. They have a unique insight into what it takes to be a hero, combined with an unequaled lyrical, even... ”– David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of First Blood
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“Only Stephen Hunter, with his brilliant knowledge of firearms, could have produced The Third Bullet and offered up a plausible explanation for one of our nation’s greatest mysteries. Despite the explosive subject matter,... ”– C.J. Box, New York Times bestselling author of Force of Nature
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“Mr. Hunter, as adept at spinning a yarn as Swagger is at hitting a bull’s-eye, has had the freedom to not only theorize, but also to create characters and situations designed to answer most of the questions raised by skeptics... ”– Dick Lochte, New York Journal of Books
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“Stephen Hunter’s novel on the assassination of JFK is captivating, compelling, and thoroughly engrossing. The history has been painstakingly researched. The plot is classic Hunter: twisty, gritty, and fast-paced but tempered... ”– Sandra Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Low Pressure
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“Hunter is at the top of the list when it comes to modern thriller writers.”– Breitbart.com
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Baltimore
The sidewalk before him bucked and heaved, blown askew by high winds howling through the night.
Oh, wait. No. Let’s edit that. There was no bucking and heaving. Ditto with the “blown askew” and the “high winds howling through the night.”
It just seemed so to Aptapton, because the winds that toyed with the stability of the sidewalk blew—“howled”—only through his own mind. They were zephyrs of vodka, and they’d substantially loosened his grip on the solidity of the little chunk of earth that lay between the bar he’d just... see more
CHAPTER 2
Idaho
In Cascade, everybody goes to Rick’s. Even Swagger.
He showed up every once in a while, maybe three, four times a month, preceded by myth, isolated by reputation, and cloaked in diffidence. He sat alone, if he came, at the counter, and had a couple of cups of coffee, black. Jeans, old boots, some kind of jacket, and a faded red Razorbacks ball cap. He could have been a drifter or a trucker or a rancher or a gunfighter. The body was rangy, without fat, slightly tense, also radiating signals of damage. He always arrived, if he was to arrive at all, at 5 a.m. with the ranchers. It was said he... see more
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Book Reviews
Reading Group Guide
A Conversation with Stephen Hunter
Q: The Third Bullet has some roots in the very first Bob Lee Swagger novel you wrote twenty years ago called Point of Impact. Tell us a little about the relationship between the two books.
A: Point of Impact was a very tough book to write—one problem was that it was inspired by and set to be about the JFK assassination. When I started it everyone believed in conspiracy. Halfway through I read Case Closed by Gerald Posner and I immediately ceased believing in conspiracy. Thus I was halfway through a novel whose whole intellectual premise had just been destroyed. So I patched and changed, and abridged and diddled, and in the end separated Point of Impact from the JFK assassination. But I am sloppy and I missed stuff, lots of stuff. Twenty years passed, new ideas came to me about this and that, and suddenly I saw an opportunity to do the JFK book of my dreams. I had a researcher go back and document all the connections to JFK that remained in Point of Impact, and I used those as a foundation for The Third Bullet.
Q: How did you connect the two plots?
A: The main problem I had with Point of Impact was the villain; he was too broad, encompassing both Special Forces experience and Washington intelligence culture smarts. I couldn't get it to work. (I had obviously never heard of Richard Armitage!) Late in the process, I broke see more
Video
Stephen Hunter on his Investigative Novel, THE THIRD BULLET
Stephen Hunter on his decision to write and background behind THE THIRD BULLET, a Bob Lee Swagger investigative novel on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
Stephen Hunter on his Investigative Novel, THE THIRD BULLET
