Black Light by Stephen Hunter

Back to a favorite – A Swagger story told in 3 parts. Does it get any better than this?

Part 1.

July 23, 1955. This is a big day. Earl Swagger awaits the parole of the young stud son of an army buddy who died in Earl’s arms on Iwo. Kid has potential and Earl has found him a job. That same morning, Earl, some search dogs, and a couple of slugs are on the prowl in the Blue Eye, Arkansas woods for a missing black teenage girl; which they find, raped, and dead for nearly a week. Jimmy Pye is released and meets up with his slow-witted cousin, heads for town, finds a planted gun, and waltzes into a big grocery store to commit a little armed robbery. Jimmy ends up killing 4 or 5 bystanders, but still manages to slip the dragnet and calls Earl wanting to give up. They agree on a remote cornfield where Jimmy decides he wants to go down in history as the guy who wasted the great Earl Swagger. Sorry pal, Earl is better, but Earl is wounded and when he calls in the shootout, he dies on the front seat of his cruiser. Add 3 more deaths to the day’s total. The surviving Swagger family goes into a tailspin.

Part 2.

Oklahoma, 1995. Lamar Pye is one of the worst of the worst lowlifes around, “not worth a turd on a hot day,” killing without remorse before dying in a maximum security prison. Oh wait, that was Hunter’s earlier book "Dirty White Boys." Russ Pewtie, the son of the Oklahoma deputy that caught Lamar, is a failed college student, sort-of a newspaperman, but he has an idea. Find out about that day Earl Swagger died at the hands of Jimmy who was the father of Lamar who screwed up his family. Father and son destroyed two different families. What a book it will make. To find out about Earl, he needs to talk to Earl's son, Bob Lee.

Part 3.

Bob Lee is 25 years out of Vietnam and still he struggles with his demons, but has at least beaten the bottle, so far. He lives quietly in the Arizona desert with his wife and 4yo daughter Nicky. Everyone in the town leaves him be, quietly laughing every time some reporter or producer tries and fails to get Bob Lee’s story. Russ, on the other hand, doesn’t want to tell Bob Lee’s story, he wants to tell Earl’s story.

Bob Lee begrudgingly agrees to help Russ and they head off for western Arkansas. Slowly, carefully, Bob Lee and Russ try to piece together seemingly obscure details about July 23 all the while being tracked by a cop who is reporting back to Red Bama, a local businessman cum organized crime jefe.

There are things from that terrible day that need to be kept secret. Bama tries everything he can to put roadblocks in the way of Bob Lee and Russ, but each time Bob Lee’s resourcefulness keeps them one step ahead of Red . . . barely . . . until Bob Lee’s methodical mind, and survival instincts, piece together a couple seemingly insignificant clues to the secret that Red feels must stay buried.

Yes, sir. Hunter has again put together a densely layered plot with enough blind alleys and unexpected twists to keep the reader firmly planted, book in hand, losing sleep. Hunter deftly weaves the underlying concept of intra-generational/familial evil into the investigation by Bob Lee and Russ. Bob Lee’s experience from his sniper days comes is critical to surviving in the Arkansas woods as they spiral down into the hole that Bama lives only to be lifted up to the surprising plot twists and the ultimate discovery of that awful secret that lead to Polk County’s worst day - when Earl Swagger was killed doing his duty. Hunter’s description of one particular instance, an ambush on a mountain road, actually raised my pulse rate and that almost never happens. Hunter has climbed up the ladder of my power rotation, now being firmly planted in my top 5: McCammon, Pelecanos, Hunter, Stella, Flynn. Eagerly awaiting my next Hunter book – Dead Zero (I'm #9 on a wait list of well over 100).

East Coast Don