Stephen Hunter - Soft Target: A Thriller

MR. HUNTER WRITES
ACTION SCENES AS WELL AS,
OR BETTER THAN, ANYONE
IN THE BUSINESS.
THE NEW YORK SUN

Black Friday
Americas largest shopping mall
Suburban Minneapolis
3:00 P.M.

Ten thousand people jam the aisles, the corridors, the elevators, and the escalators of America, the Malla giant Rubiks Cube of a 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 Hunters hyper-drive, eighth-gear new thriller, Soft Target, chronicles the day when the unthinkable happens: twelve gunmen open fire in the mall corridors, driving the pack before them. Those on the upper floors take cover or get out any way they can; but within a few minutes the gunmen have herded more than a thousand hostages into the amusement park.

Ray Cruz, one of the heroes of Hunters last bestseller, Dead Zero, is in the mall with his fiance and her family. The retired Marine sniper thought he was done with stalking and killingbut among the trapped thousands, hes the only one with a plan and the guts to confront the self-proclaimed Brigade Mumbai. Now all he needs is a gun.

FBI Sniper Dave McElroy has a gun. But positioned on the roof of the vast building, looking down through one of its thickly paned Great Lakesshaped skylights, and without explosives or fusesor the go-ahead from his superiorshe is effectively cut off from his targets and forced into the role of witness to the horror unfolding below.

Set during the four hours of the terrifying event, the story follows both hostages and gunmen, detailing the complex strategic police response, the full-press media saturation coverage, even the politics of SWAT as both the Minnesota State Police and the FBI struggle to control, confront, and ultimately defuse the crisis.

Having learned the lessons of Columbine, the feds believe that immediate action is the only solution. But Douglas Obobo, the charismatic and ambitious commandant of the state police, orders cooperation, tolerance, communication, and empathy for the gunmen. He feels that with his superior negotiating skills, he can make contact with the shooters and gently nudge them into surrender. But what if their goal all along has been unparalleled massacreand theyre only waiting for prime time?

With unrelenting suspense and vivid scenes of violence and chaos in the center of a terror-crazed afternoon in Middle America, thriller master Stephen Hunter takes us into the belly of the softest of soft targets.

PRAISE FOR STEPHEN HUNTERS DEAD ZERO
THE THRILLER THAT INTRODUCED
MARINE SNIPER RAY CRUZ

Dead Zero is at its best when Hunter has Cruz in the novels crosshairs.

THE OREGONIAN

The only book better than a new Jack Reacher novel is a new Bob Lee Swagger adventure. Dead Zero , with a dynamite plot and riveting characters, is everything any action fan could want as [Swagger] pits his wits against a man who could be a younger version of himself.

TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

If anyone could be more valorous, more skilled and resourceful, more uncompromisingly upright, and at the same time more downright deadly than Bob Lee Swagger, it would have to be Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz.

KIRKUS REVIEWS

Stephen Hunters Bob Lee Swagger is getting to be almost as popular as James Lee Burkes Dave Robicheaux or Lee Childs Jack Reacher series.... In Dead Zero ... theres a marine sniper out there who just wont die. He mirrors Swagger in his talent and intensity. His name is Ray Cruz.... Dead Zero is packed with Hunters patented action sequences, great character studies and sinister villains working on their doctorate in Power. Heres hoping we see more of the unstoppable Ray Cruz. Hed make a fitting successor in Hunters army elite.

MADISON COUNTY HERALD.COM

MORE PRAISE FOR STEPHEN HUNTER

Hunter is a great entertainer, one of our finest practitioners of the classic, blood-soaked and propulsive American thriller.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Master of the modern gunfighter tale, he isnt just the best action writer of this generation, but the best of any.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

Few authors, of any genre, write with as much swagger and verve as film-critic-turned-thriller-bestseller Hunter.

FT. WORTH STAR TELEGRAM

STEPHEN HUNTER has written 17 novels. The retired chief film critic for The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, he has also published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

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ALSO BY STEPHEN HUNTER

__________

Dead Zero

I, Sniper

Night of Thunder

The 47th Samurai

American Gunfight (with John Bainbridge, Jr.)

Now Playing at the Valencia

Havana

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Hot Springs

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Violent Screen: A Critics 13 Years on the Front Lines of Movie Criticism

Dirty White Boys

Point of Impact

The Day Before Midnight

Target

The Spanish Gambit (Tapestry of Spies)

The Second Saladin

The Master Sniper

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2011 by Stephen Hunter

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition December 2011

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