What I've Read (sorta): Dead Zero

This was a leftover from the holiday drive from Kentucky. I was going through the iPod and realized I left about 7 hours left on the audiobook. So after closing out the unfortunate Guinness book, I strapped on the chesticles (hey, it's Kelly's term not mine) and got through the rest of Stephen Hunter's continuation of the Bob Lee Swagger saga.

Gotta say, though, I wish I had stopped where I had originally left off. Look, I'm never going to hate on a Bob Lee Swagger novel. That character has been with me longer than most friends I have. But this was one of the weaker outings in the franchise, and I have a sneaking suspicion and I can see where this thread is heading that Hunter started in the final third of the book. These stories have generally lacked crazy plot twists and instead relied on good page-turning action and witty writing. This was not that book.

Instead it was a bunch of rather ridiculous gotcha moments and bizarro set pieces that make no narrative sense of warp the sense of space and time that is rather akin to the stuff you saw in Enemy of the State where Will Smith somehow ran from Georgetown to Dupont Circle in about 11 seconds. Anyway, the point is that leaps of logic were taken and missed terribly.

Hunter has another new novel out, and it's all focused on the secondary character from this novel, so I'm a little worried about what this means for my hero Bob Lee. I'm sure I'll check it out eventually but I'm not sure how excited I am about getting familiar with this new guy who may be a badass but isn't Bob Lee.