Plot summary

There are two interconnected plots that unfold simultaneously in this novel; one is set in the present, and deals with Bob Lee Swagger and Russ Pewtie, while the other is set in 1955, and deals with Bob Lee's father, Earl, and the events leading up to his death.

This book catches the reader up with Bob Lee about five years after the events in Point of Impact

Point of Impact

Point of Impact is a 1993 thriller novel by award-winning author Stephen Hunter.-Plot introduction:The plot revolves around a former Vietnam sniper named Bob Lee Swagger or Bob 'the Nailer'. This character is loosely based upon the real Vietnam sniper and Marine Corps legend Carlos Hathcock...

. He now has a daughter who is four years old, named Nikki, and he has married Julie Fenn, the widow of his fallen spotter, Donnie Fenn. He is living happily, if not humbly, in Arizona, trying to avoid the notoriety he gained during the events in Point of Impact

Point of Impact

Point of Impact is a 1993 thriller novel by award-winning author Stephen Hunter.-Plot introduction:The plot revolves around a former Vietnam sniper named Bob Lee Swagger or Bob 'the Nailer'. This character is loosely based upon the real Vietnam sniper and Marine Corps legend Carlos Hathcock...

.

A young man approaches him with a proposition. This young man's name is Russ Pewtie, the grown son of Bud Pewtie, who as described in Dirty White Boys

Dirty White Boys

Dirty White Boys is a vivid and violent novel by American author Stephen Hunter. The story begins with the escape of Hunter's brutal antagonist, Lamar Pye, and two other accomplices, from a penitentiary in the mid-western USA and continues as Lamar encounters highway patrol officer Bud...

was responsible for the death of Lamar Pye. Russ is a writer, and wants to write a book about Bob Lee's father, who was gunned down one night in 1955, near Bob's home town of Blue Eye, Arkansas, by Lamar's father, Jimmy.

As Russ and Bob Lee probe into the details surrounding Earl's death, there are some startling revelations, including a conspiracy to keep these details hidden, which give deeper insight into the history of Bob Lee.

The plot involves several of Hunter's signature interconnecting characters (who appear in various roles in more than one of his novels). These include Sam Vincent, the former Polk County prosecutor who appears in Point of Impact

Point of Impact

Point of Impact is a 1993 thriller novel by award-winning author Stephen Hunter.-Plot introduction:The plot revolves around a former Vietnam sniper named Bob Lee Swagger or Bob 'the Nailer'. This character is loosely based upon the real Vietnam sniper and Marine Corps legend Carlos Hathcock...

, and Frenchy Short, the CIA agent and Earl Swagger protege who appears in The Second Saladin, and also in the later Earl Swagger novels Hot Springs

Hot Springs (novel)

Hot Springs is a fictional work by Stephen Hunter, published in 2000.Hot Springs is a novel telling about gangsters and gambling in U.S. city Hot Springs, Arkansas...

and Havana

Havana (novel)

Havana is a novel by author Stephen Hunter. The third novel in the Earl Swagger series, it was released by Simon & Schuster in 2003, and takes place in Cuba during the emergence of Fidel Castro....

.

Part of the connection between the novel's two time periods is the role of Sam Vincent in the prosecution of the murderer of a young black girl in 1955, and the re-investigation of that case in the present. Vincent's feelings about race relations in the two periods, the contrasts between them, and his struggle to reconcile the two, are very well drawn.