Product Description

Mississippi, 1951: The last place any sane man wants to visit is Thebes State Penal Farm. Of the few who make the journey there, even fewer return.

But when an old friend disappears inside Thebes, ex-Marine and Arkansas State Police Sgt. Earl Swagger takes a personal interest in the case. As he infiltrates the prison, what he experiences defies his wildest nightmares -- a savage world where death is the only salvation. As tough as he is, Swagger barely escapes with his life -- and his mind -- intact. But he's not going to stay away for long. Recruiting six of the hardest, deadliest gunmen ever known, bloody vengeance is soon at hand. Because Earl Swagger is going back to Thebes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81949 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416593645
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Medal of Honor winner Earl Swagger returns in a hard-hitting sequel to Stephen Hunter's best-selling Hot Springs, this time compelled by duty and friendship to follow his best friend, former Arkansas prosecutor Sam Vincent, to the most dangerous place in Mississippi. Sam has gone to Thebes, a prison for violent African American criminals, on a mission for a client. What he finds there is not only a travesty of justice, but a place where the inhumanity of the jailers is matched by the horrific secret research being carried out on helpless prisoners. Captured and tortured himself, Earl manages to escape, but in short order he's back, along with a hand-picked posse of aging sharpshooters who are eager to prove they've still got what it takes. They're also as intent as Earl is on unmasking the conspiracy and destroying the real criminals. Bloody, bullet-ridden, and brilliantly paced, this is Hunter at his explosive best. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Earl Swagger, the gritty WWII-vet hero of Hunter's bestselling thriller Hot Springs, is back in this virtually un-put-downable gothic chiller about unspeakable evil in the murky Mississippi bayous. In 1951, five years after the conclusion of Hot Springs, straight arrow ex-county prosecutor Sam Vincent tells Earl - his trusted friend and former investigator, now a sergeant in the Arkansas state police - that he has been hired by a Chicago attorney to travel to Thebes, a mythic prison camp in the remote backwaters of Mississippi to verify the death of a black man who is the beneficiary of a will left by a one-time employer. When Earl hasn't heard from Sam by an agreed upon date, he goes looking for him and discovers that he is being held in the prison. Earl frees Sam, but is taken prisoner himself. Tortured by the prison hierarchy who fear he has been sent by a federal agency to expose their abominable secrets, Earl, aided by a trusty, escapes, vowing to return to destroy the camp and kill its evil warden and his henchmen. A staunch upholder of the law, self-righteous Sam refuses to participate in Earl's plan for retribution, but promises not to interfere. Assembling a strike force of seven of the country's most able gunmen, Earl sets out to wipe Thebes from the face of the earth. Meanwhile, probing the fate of a famous doctor who worked for the military researching biological warfare during WWII, Sam realizes Thebes may harbor an even darker secret after a bomb attempt on his life. Unforgettable characters in vivid settings more than offset the melodramatic, credibility stretching scenarios of the hard-driving thriller. Once again, Hunter proves he is a master of the cinematic prose. Agent, Esther Newberg, ICM. (Oct. 12).
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Just bumped up from November, this thriller is set in the South like Hunter's recent hit, Hot Springs. When a friend disappears after heading off to Mississippi to investigate a secret prison for violent black convicts (it's 1951), Earl Swagger swaggers off and gets into trouble of his own.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Good, but not the best by Stephen Hunter
The main character of "Pale Horse Coming" is Earl Swaggert, who was also the subject of Hunter's last novel "Hot Springs." In an effort to rescue his friend attorney Sam Vincent, Swaggert finds himself in a prison located in a mythical Mississippi county known as Thebes. Vincent, by the way, behaves with almost unbelievable stupidity throughout the book, especially for someone who spent most of his life in the South. Swaggert, being nearly superhuman, survives the brutal treatment in the prison, escapes, and leads a party of gunmen back to destroy it.

Anyone who has enjoyed the past Swaggert books by Hunter will like this one. Hunter (whose other job is film critic for the Washington Post) throws in many references to other books and to films. Thus, the prison is undoubtedly named Thebes so that Hunter can refer to the Greek play "Seven Against Thebes" several times in the novel. There is also a subplot taken almost directly from Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom." The use of seven gunmen brings to mind "The Magnificent Seven" and "Seven Samurai." Finally, those familiar with the shooting world, may recognize the real life models for the gunmen. Not being so familiar, the only one I could identify is based on World War II hero Audie Murphy, who went on to star in a series of B western movies in the 50s.

Much of what readers have come to expect from Hunter is present in this novel -- lots of gunplay, discussion of the details of shooting, and lots of action. I rate it below "Hot Springs," "Point of Impact," and "Dirty White Boys" because there are a number of slow sections in the book -- particularly at the beginning where Sam Vincent has to really work at getting himself in trouble so that Earl Swaggert will have to rescue him. Not all of the gunmen come across as individual characters, and I had trouble keeping about half of them straight, although the remainder were clear enough. Some of the literary baggage seems a bit much, particularly the borrowed subplot from "Absalom, Absalom."

Still, these were relatively minor weaknesses in and should not discourage anyone who likes Hunter's books from buying this one. He provides enough excitement to keep most readers hooked. Even when Hunter is not at his best, he is still far above most writers in his genre.

Earl Swagger returns
Stephen Hunter made a name for himself the last decade or so with the Swagger novels. Three involve Bob Lee Swagger, a Marine sniper in Viet Nam who just wants to retire peacefully to his native Arkansas. Pale Horse Coming is the second involving Earl Swagger, Bob Lee's father, a Marine Medal of Honor winner from the Pacific War who has returned to Arkansas to be a State Trooper. In this installment, an old family friend, Sam Vincent, gets himself into more trouble than you'd think a simple country lawyer could, and winds up a prisoner in Thebes, Mississippi, at a prison for Blacks that is so horrific it even has the same sign over the entrance as Auschwitz. Earl breaks Sam out of the prison, but is himself captured in the process. We then follow Earl through the horror of this place in all of its manifestations. Eventually, Earl breaks out, recruits a group of gunmen, and returns to kill the guards and destroy the prison.

The beginning of the book is paced reasonably well, but you know something more is going to happen, so you are anticipating what's to come. Earl's incarceration in the prison was interminable for me after a while: I think this is the weak point of the book. Once he escapes, the recruiting of the gunmen, and their return to Thebes, are interesting, with the proviso that suspense isn't an issue here: these guys are so good that the guards and local police don't stand a chance, and are soon running. Only the main bad guy characters provide any challenge at all. I gather that you can sort of recognize some of the gunmen from the last third of the book as pastiches of real individuals: the only one most readers are likely to recognize is a rather obvious Audie Murphy. This is in keeping with Hunter's previous books: Bob Lee Swagger's rival sniper in Viet Nam in Point of Impact is based on a real individual.

Given all of that, this is still a fun book. The plot moves right along, and the author has a good time with his characters. You can tell he's enjoying this. There's a whole sequence at the beginning with the Mississippi police deciding that a lawyer from Blue Eye Arkansas is probably sophisticated and a Yankee, and that drew several chuckles from me. I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it.

Simply outstanding!
Pale Horse Coming is classic Stephen Hunter -- an epic battle of good versus evil, the limits of human endurance, courage under fire, loyalty, and of course, guns. The story centers around two characters from Hunter's previous works -- Sam Vincent, gentleman lawyer, and Earl Swagger, WWII veteran and medal of honor winner. On behalf of a client, Vincent journeys deep into the wilderness of Mississippi to check on the status of a prisoner at Thebes State Prison - the location where the worst of the worst "colored" offenders are sent. Suspecting that he is walking into a dangerous situation, Vincent obtains the word of Swagger that he will come looking for Vincent if he does not return from Mississippi in a pre-specified duration. Of course, Vincent walks into something that is beyond even his worst nightmares, thus engaging Swagger in his pledge to follow Vincent. The story moves well, has lots of action, suspense, and frequent plot twists, while giving the author a forceful understanding of race relations in the deep South during the 1950's. If you have liked Hunter's previous works, you will enjoy this as well. It is a compelling page turner.