Literature / Bob Lee Swagger

Bob Lee Swagger is the protagonist of a series of novels by American author Stephen Hunter. After serving as a Marine sniper in Vietnam with 87 confirmed kills, Swagger received a Career-Ending Injury and intends to retire to a quiet life in the country; however, his unique skillset keeps bringing him into contact with people who need his help, as well as bringing him into conflict with former Soviet operatives, Yakuza, Middle Eastern Terrorists, The Cartel, and sinister government agents.

Books in the Bob Lee Swagger series:

1. Point of Impact (1993)
2. Black Light (1996)
3. Time to Hunt (1998)
4. The 47th Samurai (2007)
5. Night of Thunder (2008)
6. I, Sniper (2009)
7. Dead Zero (2010)
8. The Third Bullet (2013)
9. Sniper’s Honor (2014)
10. G-Man (2017)
11. Game of Snipers (2019)
12. Targeted (2022)
13. Front Sight (2024)

Related or spin-off novels:

• The Master Sniper (1980)
• The Day Before Midnight (1989) — A stand-alone novel published before the main series, but Hunter later connected some characters back to the events of this book
• Dirty White Boys (1994)
• The Second Saladin (1998) — A stand-alone novel, but some characters are connected to side characters in the Swagger books
• Hot Springs (2000) — Features Swaggers father, Earl Swagger, as the main protagonist
• Pale Horse Coming (2001) — Features Swaggers father, Earl Swagger, as the main protagonist
• Havana (2003) — Features Swaggers father, Earl Swagger, as the main protagonist
• Soft Target (2012) – Features Ray Cruz, a character introduced in Dead Zero and Swagger's son as the main protagonist

Adaptations include:

• Shooter: A film adaptation of Point of Impact, the first book in the series. It was directed by Antoine Fuqua with Mark Wahlberg playing Swagger.

• Shooter: A television series on the USA network starring Ryan Phillippe as Swagger. It ran for three seasons; the first season followed the plot of Point Of Impact, while the second and third seasons drew elements from other books in the series.

Please note that this is the page for tropes used in the novels. For tropes in the Shooter film or series, please use the links above.

The books provide examples of:

#-E

• Affably Evil: Many of the villains, but Anto Grogan and his team from I, Sniper stand out, being utterly cold-blooded killers and torturers, yet fairly charming off the clock who aren't afraid to admit to feeling some Villain Respect.
• The Alcoholic: Runs in the Swagger family; Bob Lee, his father Earl, and his grandfather Charles all struggle with alcoholism. Bob Lee and Earl both use alcohol to deal with their war trauma, and both are able to overcome the addiction.
• All Germans Are Nazis: Averted, while many of Hunter's WWII German characters are happy participants in the holocaust, Sniper's Honor features various soldiers just trying to survive the war while retaining some honor, and a general who turns out to have been part of the July 20th plot.
• Ambiguous Syntax: The related standalone novel "The Day Before Midnight" last mentions one of the American leaders as being "hit twice" in a way which makes it unclear if he is killed or injured.
• Author Avatar: A stand-in for Stephen Hunter appears in the opening chapter of The Third Bullet. Unusual for this trope, he is killed off in the same chapter he's introduced.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Audie is the only member of the team in Pale Horse Coming not to be at least middle-aged besides Earl himself.
• Badass Boast: The Big Bad of Night of Thunder gives one of these to Swagger, stating:
  "Swagger, you are way overmatched. You have seen me draw. You know how fast I am, and how I don‘t never miss. I have to leave now. If you try to stop me I will kill you. Who do you think you are?"
  • Bob, however, is not intimidated, and responds in kind:
  "Who do I think I am? You never got it, did you? Y'all thought I was some old coot from out West, no match for Grumley killers and armed robbers and crooked-as-hell detectives. I am Bob Lee Swagger, Gunnery Sergeant, USMC, eighty-seven kills, third-ranking marine sniper in Vietnam. I have shot it out with Salvadorian hunter-killer units and Marisol Cubano hitmen and a Russian sniper sent halfway around the world. I even won a sword fight or two in my time. They all had one thing in common. They thought they were hunting me, and I was hunting them. Faced many, all are sucking grass from the bitter, root end. Here‘re your choices: You can come easy or you can come dead."
  • In case you're wondering how the confrontation turns out...Bob shoots her three times before she even got the safety off.
• Badass Family:
  • Bob Lee, his father Earl, and his son, Ray Cruz are all shown to be exceptional marksmen and gunfighters. Bob's half-brother Lamar Pye counts as well, though as a darker version.
  • G-Man reveals that Bob's grandfather Charles was also this as well, proving to possibly be the most adept pistoleer in the Swagger line, effectively inventing the modern technique of the pistol in 1934. While he eventually grew into an alcoholic JerkAss, his combat skills cannot be denied.
• Badass Israeli: The Big Bad of The Third Bullet refers to hiring a few for surveillance purposes, and Useful Notes/Mossad plays a prominent role in Sniper's Honor and Game of Snipers.
• Body-Count Competition: Although it took place before the books, Swagger is officially the third ranking American Marine sniper in Vietnam, with 87 confirmed kills. Unofficially, his body-count is closer to 400.
• Butt-Monkey: Poor Donny Fenn. He was injured in Vietnam and spent six months in the hospital. When he recovers he is put in a relatively cushy position and is presumed to be safe from returning to Vietnam due to his short time remaining. However, he is threatened with redeployment unless he spies on a member of his squad, who is suspected of leaking info to the peace movement. He smokes weed to ingratiate himself with the squad member; this is photographed and used to blackmail him into further activity. Eventually, he is asked to perjure himself and falsely testify against the squad member; he refuses, is shipped out to Vietnam, and dies the day before he's scheduled to come home.
• Cain and Abel: Cleon and Davis in Pale Horse Coming turn out to be this.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Just about any time a book has a repeatedly mentioned politician or rich guy throughout the first several acts in a seemingly minor manner, he turns out to be the Big Bad.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Nick Memphis's second wife is pregnant during the events of Time to Hunt but no child is mentioned during any of the couple's subsequent appearances (although the In-Universe meaning of this could range anywhere form a miscarriage to simply the kid being off at school).
• CIA Evil, FBI Good: In Stephen Hunter's early novels, the CIA is usually portrayed as being shady and amoral. The FBI on the other hand is portrayed much more positively, with FBI agent Nick Memphis serving as one of Swagger's staunchest allies.
• Cluster F-Bomb: The book as a whole is no stranger to language, but Payne thinks in these terms. His death scene is quite something.
• Coattail-Riding Relative: Evgeny Pashin, a Russian presidential candidate in "Time to Hunt" causes in on being the brother of Soviet hero Arkady Pashin, a character in the standalone novel "The Day Before Midnight" and the Earl Swagger book Havana. The fact that Pashin is still seen as a Soviet hero after going rogue and nearly starting WWIII is more than a little disturbing.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Justin Monk from The Third Bullet is really just pretending to be one while serving as a spy for Meechum.
• Continuity Nod: In I, Sniper, when investigating a legendary Marine Corps sniper accused of assassinating several celebrities, Swagger is about to ask if the firing pin on the rifle was checked, but the director of the FBI's forensics lab beats him to the punch, telling him that yes, he was the same lab tech from Point of Impact who checked Swagger's rifle, and yes, this time he did check that the firing pin worked.
• Cold Sniper: Solaratov.
• Crazy-Prepared: In G-Man when Bob and Nick Capture the Grumley Brothers, it turns out the brothers have prepared for such a contingency by researching what happened between Charles Swagger and Baby Face Nelson -which as been Bob Lee's goal throughout the story-, and stashing the proof nearby, using this to convince the two to let them go. Bob Lee himself is also pretty good at this, such as how he dismantles all of his firing pins before leaving his house so no one can use his guns.
• Dark and Troubled Past: In Sniper's Honor had her father executed by Stalin for protesting about a popular but inefficient agricultural policy, her mother died of grief, and her husband and two brother all died earlier in the war.
• Disability Immunity: An aging Swagger has to get his hip replaced. This benefits him in The 47th Samurai when he engages in a sword fight with a much more experienced opponent; his titanium artificial hip stops a sword blow that would have cut him in half, which allows him an opening to end the fight.
• The Dragon: Jack Payne is the primary enforcer for the villains in the first book.
• Driven to Suicide: Mick Bogomil in Dead Zero does this after killing a lot of innocents for an objective he's failed to complete (and is possibly questioning the purpose of) and seeing his partners killed after having wanted to keep them alive.
• Elective Mute: Rawley Grumley in G-Man is The Quiet One until the very end of the novel, but comes across as a very talkative Southern-Fried Genius once he actually starts speaking. To be fair, his brother did mention this in their introductory scene, albeit not very convincingly.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In Time To Hunt Solaratov is discovered by two phone company employees while breaking into their office to steal information. He is forced to kill both of them due to them witnessing what he was doing. Despite the fact that Solaratov is a cold-blooded professional assassin who has killed dozens, if not hundreds, of people over the decades he feels a twinge of guilt over having to murder two completely innocent people.
  • One of the villains in Black Light finds out the identity of Bob's wife, but refuses to target her because going after an enemy's family is too evil even for him.
• Evil Cripple:
  • This is discussed, with Nick Memphis hypothesizing that when someone is fundamentally good, becoming paralyzed brings out the best in them as was the case with his wife; when someone is fundamentally bad, becoming paralyzed brings out the worst.
  "They once told me that there was nobody more bitter than a strong, firm man exiled into a metal chair forever."
  • Lon Scott, the real sniper. His immobility is a major plot point. Although in The Third Bullet Lon Scott is given a more sympathetic portrayal. He is shown to be a tragic figure whose disability and guilt over killing John F. Kennedy gradually turned him into the remorseless killer in Point of Impact.
• Evil Uncle: An incidental version in ''The Day Before Midnight", when, as part of his plan, Arkady Pashin is willing to set off a nuclear bomb in the cellar of an embassy where his nephew works in order to decapitate the American leadership. Despite some initial Fauxshadowing, the nephew is completely unaware of this.
• Fall Guy: In Point of Impact, Bob Lee is ostensibly recruited to prevent an attempt on the president's life; however, it's all a trap to set him up to take the blame.

F-Z

• False Flag Operation: In Game Of Snipers, Swagger and crew are chasing an Islamic terrorist, who is planning an attack on what is assumed to be the president (never named, but presumed to be Donald Trump, who was president when the book was released). Swagger eventually discovers that the actual target is the previous president (also never named, but presumed to be Barack Obama); the terrorist is trying to make it appear as if the killing was carried out by a right wing extremist in order to further divide the country on political grounds.
• Foregone Conclusion: Several characters survival is ensured in novels with flashbacks and such.
  • The ever-treacherous state trooper turned CIA asset Frenchy Short (an antagonist in two of the Earl Swagger novels and novels and one Bob Lee Swagger one) is safe from being killed by the Swagger's.... because he's tortured to death by a blowtorch-wielding KGB agent in connection with the events of the standalone novel The Second Saladin.
  • During the Vietnam scenes from "A Time to Hunt" it's already been established that Bob Lee will survive the war and Donny Fenn won't.
  • In the World War II flashbacks of "The 47th Samurai" both previous books and content from the beginning of the book make it clear that Earl Swagger will survive the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Japanese commander Hideki Yano won't.
  • In Havana, Earl Swagger is tasked with assassinating Fidel Castro in Cuba. It can be assumed that he will not succeed, as the book takes place in the 1950s and the real life Castro was still alive in 2003 when the book was published.
• Freudian Excuse: Lon Scott was accidentally shot in the spine by his father at a relatively young age, paralyzing him, days after which his father committed suicide. Messed him up something fierce.
• Friendly Sniper: Played straight and averted with Bob Lee. He's old-fashioned and polite to those he has to deal with, but he's also reclusive and withdrawn from the world at large, and once he gets on scope he's a Cold Sniper.
  • Chuck McKenzie is this to a T, off and on the scope.
  • ex-spetsnaz sniper Stronski, who cooperates with a couple of Bob Lee's investigations, is also fairly jovial.
  • Milli Petrova from Sniper's Honor acts reserved and unquestioning, but this is actually a survival tactic to avoid punishment from her Soviet superiors (as well as grief over her dead family) and nonverbally shows hesitation about the purpose of her mission early on (before learning what kind of a monster she's being sent after), gave several burning German tankers Mercy Kill's after being specifically ordered not to waste the bullets, and is protective of the partisans helping her.
  • Ron Fields from I, Sniper is a very amiable man dedicated to helping out Nick and Bob Lee, whose a shrewd investigator and has served as a sniper for several hostage situations without once having to shoot anyone.
  • Subverted with Anto Grogan and his fellow sniper trainers from I, Sniper (all of them ex-SAS). They are incredibly cheerful people but are also hired killers who take some pleasure in their work.
• Gun Porn: Lots of it, and thanks to a liberal helping of Shown Their Work, it's all extremely detailed and accurate.
• The Gunslinger: Charles Swagger, pretty much all of the core cast in Pale Horse Coming, and Thelma Fielding stand out.
• Hauled Before a Senate Subcommittee: In Targeted, Bob Lee is hauled before a subcommittee investigating the use of force against terrorists. It's portrayed as an utterly cynical re-election ploy by several Smug Snake Straw Liberals.
• Heel–Face Turn: Dr. Dobbler and arguably Braxton and Rawley Grumley.
• Humble Hero:
  • Bob Lee becomes uncomfortable whenever somebody calls him a hero, and insists that he isn't.
  • Earl is this as well, especially regarding his Medal of Honor:
  "I ain't no hero. I'm just the lucky sonofabitch who walked away from the shell that killed the ten other guys. They're giving me the medal of luck today, that's all."
• Husky Russkie: Stronski is a pretty brawny fellow.
• I Owe You My Life: in G-Man, Homer Van Meter provides covering fire for his fellow bank robbers, saving them from being killed or captured, and while Les/Baby Face initially denies feeling any such sentiment, he later admits to feeling it after Homer is killed by the police.
• Ignored Expert: Prior to Sniper's Honor, Milli Petrova's father, an agricultural biologist, recognized that Stalin's new hybrid wheat experiments would fail after one generation and drastically reduce the Soviet Union's food supply. His efforts to spread the truth got him executed and Stalin enacted his policies anyway, leading to the deadliest famine in European history: nine million deaths.
• It's Raining Men: Von Drehle and his paratroopers in Sniper's Honor.
• Leg Focus: One of the first things Bob Lee notes about Badass Bureaucrat Susan Okada is her legs.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Bob and Nick's first meeting has Nick trying to arrest Bob for a crime he didn't commit. Bob wins.
• Lifesaving Misfortune: In the Action Prologue of Sniper's Honor, the Wehrmacht loser of a World War II Sniper Duel survives but suffers a horrible shoulder wound. That shoulder wound gets him evacuated from Stalingrad just hours before his unit is forced to surrender and sent to The Gulag, where nearly all of them die.
• The Magnificent Seven Samurai: Notable in that the seven are gathered for a mission of retribution, rather than defense and protection. In Pale Horse Coming, Earl is confined as the only white man in a Hellhole Prison in the deep south designed for black prisoners. He manages to escape, but gathers six men (expies of real-life gunslingers) and returns to free the other prisoners and wipe the prison off the face of the earth.
• Majorly Awesome: Karl Von Drehle is an elite Father to His Men who has survived some of the worst fighting of theSecond World War, is introduced taking a bridge from the Russians with his men, and isn't afraid to defy or even fight, the SS throughout the novel.
• Manly Gay: Gun-toting sheriff Charles Swagger, Bob Lee's grandfather is revealed to have been a closet gay (or perhaps bisexual) man who started following his impulses later in life.
• Men of Sherwood:
  • The Japanese soldiers in The 47th Samurai do an effective job helping in Storming the Castle in the climax and only suffer a couple of mild injuries.
  • In Sniper's Honor, Von Drehle and his small paratrooper unit expertly accomplish every job that they're forced to handle for the Nazis but resist them in several small ways before finally turning on the regime and carrying out a Curb-Stomp Battle against the SS without losing a soldier.
• The Mole: In Time to Hunt the character of Bonson is a spy working for the Russian ultranationalist party PAMYAT. Eventually he manages to rise to the office of CIA director.
• Murder by Mistake: The plot of Point Of Impact hinges around a failed assassination attempt on the US president, which instead resulted in the death of a Salvadoran archbishop who was standing next to the president. The archbishop was actually the real target all along; the conspirators knew that murdering him next to the president would make everyone assume it was a botched attempt on the president's life.
• My Greatest Failure: Nick accidentally shooting Myra, even though it wasn't entirely his fault, has never quite left him. This is despite the fact that she has fully forgiven (and married) him.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • The novel I, Sniper features a few examples. The character Carl Hitchcock is based on real-life Marine sniper and Vietnam vet Carlos Hathcock. The character Joan Flanders is based on Jane Fonda, and billionaire television mogul T.T. Constable is based on Ted Turner. Chuck McKenzie is based off Chuck Mawhinney, Marine Corps sniper with the highest confirmed kill count in Vietnam.
  • The character of Richard Puller in The Day Before Midnight and Time to Hunt is based on Richard J. Meadows, a real-life U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who was a key figure in founding Delta Force.
  • In Pale Horse Coming, Earl Swagger recruits a large group of firearms experts to help him in Storming the Castle. These include explicit expies of Elmer Keith, Jack O'Connor, Ed McGivern, Charles Askins, Bill Jordan, and Audie Murphy.
  • Hot Springs both averts this and plays it straight. Averted with Bugsy Siegel and Virginia Hill, two real life gangsters who play a role in the events of the novel. Played straight with brief appearances from a screen writer named Bill (meant to be William Faulkner), and a gay pool attendant named Roy (meant to be Roy Scherer, who was better known as Rock Hudson). Several other real-life Hollywood celebrities are mentioned by name, but don't appear in the book.
  • In Targeted, there is much discussion of the current president and former president; while it's fairly obvious that the president is intended to be Donald Trump and the previous president to be Barack Obama^note as was the case when the novel was published in 2019, neither is mentioned by name.
• Off with His Head!: The fate of the Big Bad of The 47th Samurai.
• Old Cop, Young Cop: Dirty White Boys features two state troopers who come into conflict with the eponymous Villain Protagonists. The seasoned older cop (who has two teenaged kids) is protective of his rookie partner, even though he's having an affair with his partner's wife.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Though not present in the "main" story, the high-stakes hearing at the end pits Bob's elderly lawyer friend Sam Vincent against the ambitious young Amoral Attorney Phil Kelso.
• One-Hit KO: Bob's father Earl delivers this to Bugsy Siegel of all people.
• One-Man Army: During The Vietnam War Bob Lee and his spotter, Donny Fenn, held off an entire North Vietnamese battalion that was closing in on a lightly-defended Special Forces encampment. For two days Bob and Donny engaged the North Vietnamese until air support could arrive. During this engagement Bob Lee personally killed over 80 enemy troops, only stopping when his ammo ran out.
• Only a Flesh Wound: One of the henchmen from The Third Bullet is mentioned as having been shot in the head by a terrorist in the Middle East, laughed it off and shot the man, something which both awes and disturbs his employer as he recounts the story.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: In G-Man Jimmy Murray has this work to his benefit. He's a decent armed robber and planner who is Respected by the Respected but he's less active and flashy than the likes of Baby-Face, Dillinger and the others, causing him to be ignored by the FBI when they launch their campaign against the so-called Public Enemies (something Baby-Face briefly lampshades).
• Posthumous Character: The closest thing to a major female character for the first two hundred pages, Myra, died just before the events of the story.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • In Targeted, one villain takes dozens of hostages, killing or wounding many people in the process. He then lets the FBI collect the wounded because their agonized screams are distracting, but killing them would use valuable bullets.
  • A second villain in Targeted, who wants the hostage-taker dead, decides not to bomb the besieged building and trigger a massive shootout because too many dead bodies will attract unwanted attention to the criminal conspiracy.
• Properly Paranoid: Before leaving on a trip in Point Of Impact, Bob Lee disables all of his rifles in such a way that they appear fully functional, but are unable to fire. Taking the firing pins out of his rifles when he puts them away would be just as effective at preventing accidents or unauthorized use, But Bob goes the extra mile and replaces them with custom-modified pins that will not fire. The only reason for this would be to fool someone who was deliberately trying to frame him. Which means he planned for that exact scenario. The book makes it clear that while he agrees to work with the government to stop the assassination, he doesn't trust them, and decides to prepare for specific eventualities after noticing that they collected some of his shell casings.
• Rank Up: After Point of Impact, Nick Memphis' stalled career begins to resume its course, and by I, Sniper, he's a Special Agent In Charge on the verge of becoming an Assistant Director.
• Renegade Russian: The Day Before Midnight features a rogue Soviet official who attempts to start World War III by taking over an American missile silo and launching a strike on the Soviet Union, forcing them to respond in kind.
• Recovered Addict: Swagger is an alcoholic
• Retirony: In Time to Hunt Donny is killed on his very last day before being rotated back home from Vietnam.
• Ripped from the Headlines: A plot element of Pale Horse Coming is the intentional infection of African-American men with syphilis; the novel was written not long after US President Bill Clinton's official apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study brought the issue back into the public consciousness.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • Bob Lee, at the end of Point of Impact, takes out the organizers of the conspiracy.
  • In G-Man, the final act of the novel is driven by Baby Face Nelson's determination to avenge the deaths of his fellow gang members.
  • In Pale Horse Coming, Earl Swagger gathers a group of six other gunslingers to wipe the Hellhole Prison he was kept in off the face of the map.
• Samus Is a Girl: The Big Bad of Night of Thunder
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: A morally gray version comes from when Red Bama kills the Big Bad of Black Light, a corrupt United States Senator, in cold blood and dryly notes that this will cost him a fortune to cover up. He does indeed cover it up successfully and walks free in court.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Two of Earl's men in Hot Springs quit the team after their bulletproof vests get taken away, given the nature of the people their going up against. This turns out to have been a very wise precaution given what happens next.
• Semper Fi: Although certain individual marines may be portrayed negatively, the United States Marine Corps on a whole is portrayed in a very positive light in Stephen Hunter's novels.
• Shown Their Work: Or, as one reviewer put it, "Stephen Hunter has done for the sniper rifle what Tom Clancy did for the nuclear submarine."
• The Shrink: Dr. Dobbler in the first book, who is introduced analyzing which of the various sniper candidates would be best suited for the job.
• Sinister Minister: The Grumley reverend in Night of Thunder.
• Smug Snake: Howard D. Utey - "Howdy Duty" to anyone he's crossed - but call him that and you'd better be prepared for a lot of Bothering by the Book.
  "He was careful to have men under him who were not quite as bright as he, and he particularly understood the dangers of talent, which was that while it was capable of producing spectacular results, it was just as apt to go off by itself to nurse obscure grudges or lick psychic wounds after gross expenditures of energy. Talent wasn't consistent or loyal or pliant enough to be trusted; Howard deeply hated talent, and made certain that none of the men who worked for him ever had any talent. He'd driven seven talented men out of the Bureau and only one had stood against him, the idiot Nick Memphis, once so bright and brimming with enthusiasm, carefully betrayed at each step of the way, and yet stubborn in his refusal to leave the Bureau."
  • For complete reference, prior to the events of the book, Utey was Memphis's superior during a hostage situation where Memphis was attempting to snipe a gunman holding a woman hostage. He yells in Memphis's earbuds just as he takes the shot, making him hit the woman! That's not conjecture either - Swagger simulates the shot, and is only able to make it by using his training to tune out the screeching over his radio.
  • It's implied that he's a willing member of RamDyne's conspiracy - especially his Villainous BSoD upon seeing Swagger walk.
• Sociopathic Hero: Charlie in Pale Horse Coming is one of the good guys but is always boasting about how many men he's killed and freely admits that he's only coming along because it sounds like a good opportunity to kill people he won't have to feel guilty about.
• Suicide, Not Murder: A variant in The 47th Samurai were, Hideki Yano is assumed to have been killed by American soldiers on the battlefield, but ultimately turns out to have instead Committed Seppeku after realizing that the American -Earl Swagger- he'd just overpowered and had at his mercy had been trying to treat his wounds.
• Take That!: I, Sniper is full of take thats to tacticool gun culture fetishism, irresponsible journalism, and the New York Times, the Washington Post's longtime rival.
• Token Good Teammate: Two of the terrorist in "Soft Target" deliberately keep from shooting anyone with their bullets, aren't true believers and contemplate slipping away. It doesn't save them, and they end up being used to exemplify What Measure Is a Mook?.
• Tunnel King: The Day Before Midnight involves the need to find Vietnam veteran tunnel rats (as suggested by a local mining expert who says that it's too complicated of a job for him) to dig through a coal mine under a missile silo. The only two who can be found on short notice are a North Vietnamese veteran (an Action Girl who fought as a teenager) who eventually defected and an African-American man who became a pimp and drug dealer -partially due to disillusionment from the racist treatment he got after his tour- and is recruited out of prison. Both are Shell Shocked Veterans reluctant to go back into the tunnels but understanding of the necessity.
• Villains Out Shopping: In Game of Snipers, while both the terrorist sniper and his local contact are devoted to their cause and generally disdainful of western civilization, the terrorist sniper is noted as developing a fondness for cheeseburger meals, while his contact enjoys watching baseball games.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Game Of Snipers
    • Much of the plot is centered upon the villain recreating a 2,707 yard shot from British Sniper Craig Harrison, based on it being the longest confirmed sniper kill. However, by the time of the book's release, this has already been surpassed by an unnamed Canadian JTF-2 sniper, with a 3800 yard shot. Admittedly, given the lack of information available on the latter, it would have been much harder to frame a plot around.
    • The president, though never named, is clearly intended to be Donald Trump (as he was in real life at the time of the novel's publication in 2018). Trump lost his reelection bid in 2020, and left office in January 2021.
  • The Day Before Midnight is a Cold War thriller that became an unintentional period piece due to the collapse of the Soviet Union two years after publication.
• Unreliable Narrator: At the end of The Third Bullet, the Big Bad is revealed to have lied at least a little in his diary, having made it sound as if he mourned the unlucky deaths of his accomplices, but ultimately admitting that he'd actually subtly arranged for their deaths out of paranoia.
• Wardens Are Evil: The one in Pale Horse Coming sure is, infecting prisoners with syphilis as a biological weapons test and being an all-around murderous racist.
• Who Shot JFK?:
  • In Point Of Impact, the antagonist Lon Scott is found to have in his possession a "curious collection of fired 162-grain .264-caliber bullets from some bizarre project or other in the early sixties". As this is similar to the bullet that killed JFK, it can be inferred that Scott performed the assassination himself and set up Lee Harvey Oswald as a Fall Guy, as he intended to do with Swagger.
  • The Third Bullet has Swagger following through with an investigation of the JFK assassination and confirming the theory.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The policeman who shot Swagger is killed by a "random mugger" not too long after fulfilling his part in the Government Conspiracy.

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