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The 47th Samurai
In The 47th Samurai, Bob Lee Swagger, the gritty hero of Stephen Hunter's bestselling novels Point of Impact and Time to Hunt, returns in this intense and exotic thriller.
Bob Lee Swagger and Philip Yano are bound together by a single moment at Iwo Jima, 1945, when their fathers, two brave fighters on opposite sides, met in the bloody and chaotic battle for the island. Only Earl Swagger survived.
More than sixty years later, Yano comes to America to honor the legacy of his heroic father by recovering the sword he used in the battle. His search has led him to Crazy Horse, Idaho, where Bob Lee, ex-marine and Vietnam veteran, has settled into a restless retirement and immediately pledges himself to Yano's quest.
Bob Lee finds the sword and delivers it to Yano in Tokyo. On inspection, they discover that it is not a standard WWII blade, but a legendary shin-shinto katana, an artifact of the nation. It is priceless but worth killing for. Suddenly Bob is at the center of a series of terrible crimes he barely understands but vows to avenge. And to do so, he throws himself into the world of the samurai, Tokyo's dark, criminal yakuza underworld, and the unwritten rules of Japanese culture.
Swagger's allies, hard-as-nails, American-born Susan Okada and the brave, cocaine-dealing tabloid journalist Nick Yamamoto, help him move through this strange, glittering, and ominous world from the shady bosses of the seamy Kabukicho district to officials in the highest echelons of the Japanese government, but in the end, he is on his own and will succeed only if he can learn that to survive samurai, you must become samurai.
As the plot races and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that a ruthless conspiracy is in place, and the only thing that can be taken for granted is that money, power, and sex can drive men of all nationalities to gruesome extremes. If Swagger hopes to stop them, he must be willing not only to die but also to kill.
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Reviews
After 2 chapters I couldn’t take anymore. I put the book down for good.
By fjcan2
I’ve seen some negative comments about this book along the lines of “not up to Hunter’s standards”, so I’m writing a brief review as a corrective. The plot line and characters were well drawn, with evil big, bad villains and more heroes that Bob Lee all by his lonesome. Of course his becoming a swordsman in a few brief months strains credulity, as well as-where’s his wife!! But, hey, Bob Lee is a Hero, so I cut Hunter some slack.
By Sspeidel
Stephen Hunter (and Apple iBooks) should be ashamed for releasing this book (and charging money) when the ebook has obviously not been edited. Thus the reader is given hundreds of great words like: makesuch. knowsyakuza, youwant, theTokyo, theyakuza, isShinsengumi, eliteyakuza, wordcut, … this crap occurs in nearly every fourth paragraph. Why am I to be treated to such when the book version does not have these errors? Apple, how do I get my money back?
By erick0010
Great new setting for Bob Lee Swagger. Great page turner.
By Robert Manfredi
Be forewarned, it's very bloody. I guess you would expect it in a modern samurai thriller. It did take a pretty preposterous turn towards the end & that morphine would not have been an appreciated gesture. Interesting detail about Japanese outlook and explanation of the 47 Ronin's importance to Japanese culture.
By Fpiano