Stephen Hunter

Stephen Hunter (born March 25, 1946, Kansas City, Missouri) is an American novelist, essayist, and film critic.

Life and career

Hunter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. His father was Charles Francis Hunter, a Northwestern University speech professor who was murdered in 1975 by two male prostitutes. His mother was Virginia Ricker Hunter, a writer of children's books. After graduating from Northwestern in 1968 with a degree in journalism, he was drafted for two years into the United States Army serving in The Old Guard (3rd Infantry Regiment) in Washington, D.C., a unit that has both operational and ceremonial missions, the latter most notably being the guard force for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He also wrote for a military paper, the ''Pentagon News.''

He joined ''The Baltimore Sun'' in 1971, working at the copy desk of the newspaper's Sunday edition for a decade. He became its film critic in 1982, a post he held until moving to ''The Washington Post'' in the same function in 1997. In 1998 Hunter won the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award in the criticism category, and in 2003 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. He accepted a buyout from the ''Post'' in 2008.

Hunter's thriller novels include '' Point of Impact'' (filmed as ''Shooter''), ''Black Light'' and ''Time to Hunt'', which form a trilogy featuring Vietnam War veteran and sniper Bob "the Nailer" Swagger. The story of Bob Lee Swagger continued with ''The 47th Samurai'' (2007), '' Night of Thunder'' (2008), '' I, Sniper'' (2009), ''Dead Zero'' (2010), ''The Third Bullet'' (2013), ''Sniper's Honor'' (2014) and ''G-Man'' (2017). The series has led to two spin-off series: ''Hot Springs'', '' Pale Horse Coming'', and ''Havana'' form another trilogy centered on Bob Swagger's father, Earl Swagger, while ''Soft Target'' (2011) focuses on Bob's long-unknown son, Ray Cruz.

Hunter has written three non-fiction books: ''Violent Screen: A Critic's 13 Years on the Front Lines of Movie Mayhem'' (1995), a collection of essays from his time at ''The Sun''; ''American Gunfight'' (2005), an examination of the November 1, 1950 attempted assassination of Harry S. Truman; and ''Now Playing at the Valencia'' (2005), a collection of pieces from ''The Washington Post''. Hunter has also written a number of non-film-related articles for ''The Post'', including one on Afghanistan: "Dressed To Kill—From Kabul to Kandahar, It's Not Who You Are That Matters, but What You Shoot" (2001).

Hunter is a firearms enthusiast, well known in the gun community for firearm detail in many of his works of fiction. He himself shoots as a hobby, saying "many people don't understand, shooting a firearm is a sensual pleasure that's rewarding in and of itself."

In an interview with NPR on February 16, 2011, in relation to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others, Hunter defended the public availability of high-capacity magazines. He also said that it was not clear if the 33-round magazine used by shooter Jared Lee Loughner played a part in the shooting. He had previously stated in his op-ed piece in ''The Washington Post'' that extended magazines are particularly valuable for the self-defense of women and the elderly, who he said could use them effectively as an alternative to semi-automatic rifles or shotguns. He points out that "women generally don't care to put in the training needed to master ifles and shotguns Nor can the elderly handle ong gunsadeptly."

Works

Novels

''Bob Lee Swagger'' series:
# '' Point of Impact'' (1993)
# ''Black Light'' (1996)
# ''Time to Hunt'' (1998)
# ''The 47th Samurai'' (2007)
# '' Night of Thunder'' (2008)
# '' I, Sniper'' (2009)
# ''Dead Zero'' (2010)
# ''The Third Bullet'' (2013)
# ''Sniper's Honor'' (2014)
# ''G-Man'' (2017)
# ''Game of Snipers'' (2019)
# ''Targeted'' (2022)
* ''Dirty White Boys'' (1994), prequel to events in ''Black Light''

''Earl Swagger'' series:
# ''Hot Springs'' (2000)
# '' Pale Horse Coming'' (2001)
# ''Havana'' (2003)
# ''The Bullet Garden'' (January 24, 2023)

''Ray Cruz'' series:
# ''Dead Zero'' (2010)
# ''Soft Target'' (2011)

Stand-alones:
* ''The Master Sniper'' (1980)
* ''The Second Saladin'' (1982)
* ''Target'' (1985), novelization of film ''Target''
* ''The Spanish Gambit'' (reissued as ''Tapestry of Spies'') (1985)
* ''The Day Before Midnight'' (1989)
* ''I, Ripper'' (2015)
* ''Basil's War'' (2021)

Short stories

*"Casey at the Bat" (2010) (in ''Agents of Treachery'', edited by Otto Penzler)

Non-fiction

* ''Violent Screen: A Critic's 13 Years on the Front Lines of Movie Mayhem'' (1996)
* ''Now Playing at the Valencia: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Essays on Movies'' (2005)
* ''American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman and the Shoot-out that Stopped It'' (2005) with John Bainbridge, Jr.,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Stephen
1946 births
Living people
Writers from Kansas City, Missouri
American film critics
Pulitzer Prize for Criticism winners
American crime fiction writers
American thriller writers
20th-century American novelists
The Baltimore Sun people
The Washington Post people
United States Army soldiers
Medill School of Journalism alumni
Writers from Baltimore
21st-century American novelists
American male novelists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Novelists from Maryland
Novelists from Missouri
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers