The Master Sniper

By: Stephen Hunter

Narrated by: Christopher Lane

With a sniper’s rifle he has calmly executed hundreds of enemy soldiers in a single battle, and gunned down thousands of innocent civilians in a single day, waiting patiently for the barrel of his gun to cool before resuming his craft…

It is the spring of 1945. And Repp, the master sniper, is about to carry out his final mission – even as Germany’s enemies overrun it, even while a tired, disorganized team of American and British agents tries everything in its power to stop him. Because for Repp, this is the job at which he cannot fail. For this time, he possesses the ultimate killing tool. And with it, he will commit the ultimate crime.

©1996 Stephen Hunter (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Mesmerizing suspense” ( Kirkus Reviews)

>“Hunter is a deft craftsman with a sure sense of pace and scene. He also knows about irony and sprinkles just a bit over every corpse.” ( The Washington Post)

“Stephen Hunter is the best writer of straight-out thrillers working today.” ( Rocky Mountain News)

Solid Listen

I liked this book a great deal, but to point to an exact reason why you should listen to it is proving to be more difficult than I expected. I'm a big fan of stories set in WW2, and Nazi plots and secret technology are pretty interesting plot elements for me. The performance is better than average and the story is a nice blend of historical research and a race against time thriller. The best way to describe it a good solid listen. One thing of note that I found as a nice change of pace was that this is a stand alone book. Its nice sometimes to listen to a book that wraps it up in one volume instead of ending on a cliff hanger. Definitely worth a credit.

Great job

Good book and great job narrating. Made me want to Listen to more and more. I will look for more of this combo

The Master Sniper

This was a great story about a German Sniper. Enjoyed the scene in the battle in Russia. The story was fast paced and moved through a brutal time in World War II history. The development of the night scope was interesting. The ending was interesting. (won't give it away) This was in many ways a cat and mouse story with the allies hunting down the sniper. When I got the book I had thought the sniper was to be American so I was taken back to find out it was really a German master sniper. Guess I did not read the intro careful enough. Christopher Lane did a good job reading the story.

awesome story

great story. You can tell this was early on in Steohen Hunter'd career as he called a magazine "a clip" several times. But still..a great bit of historical fiction

Master sniper

This is a great book with a great narration and a great story I would recommend this book to anyone who is not afraid of gore

Love the storytelling!

Love how hunter gets into the details of the firearms, which in a sense are always a character themselves and are a huge part of his stories. Especially this one.

No can do!

I've started this book a couple of times, but can't get into the narration of this one. Stephen Hunter is usually four or five stars for me so this is an odd one. I tried one last time, but it's just not what I expected.

Not Great, story has potential

Would you try another book from Stephen Hunter and/or Christopher Lane?

Not based upon this one but it's the only one I have heard from them so it is not enough to make a judgement.

Would you ever listen to anything by Stephen Hunter again?

Not sure after just a partial listening. The type of story has potential.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Unfortunately the accents just seemed kinda "hokey" to me, but it must be difficult to portray a generation that you may be unfamiliar with or a dialect, etc. Also transitioning from male to female, American to Pol, Brit to German, etc had to be difficult.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Master Sniper?

Unsure at this time. It's hard to say for me as the story seemed to transition strangely to times, places and people.

Great cure for insomnia

Stephen Hunter has been on my required reading list since the release of the movie Shooter. I was less than impressed with the movie, and since it's always been said the book is better than the movie I decided to see if this was again the case. After the first read, I was hooked. I've been through each of the Swagger series since then. Having run out of Swagger adventures to get me through my days as an over the road truck driver, I decided I'd give his other novels a shot, and The Master Sniper was my first purchase.

I regret to say that I am not impressed. The commentor above me remarked that this novel is "fast paced." Perhaps it is...after the first three or four hours. I wouldn't know, as that's as far as I could safely listen. After an incredibly long, and mind-numbingly boring bout of character introductions, I was left wondering if there would be time for the story itself to develop before the end. Two times within the first hour I found myself nodding off. As I mentioned, I drive a commercial vehicle for a living, NOT a good place to be nodding off. I turned the Ipod off and went back to music. However, I've known many novels to start off boring but eventually turn into a masterpiece so I decided to give this one a second shot. BIG mistake. The most exciting scene I came across was that of the fellow prisoners being sniped while "the jew" manages to escape. I'd hoped that this scene would be the redemption, but the ensuing chase and eventual, lackadaisical calling off of the pursuit were the final straw.

I'd hoped I could say that the duldrum was merely due to the monotous drone of the narrator, for that would somewhat redeem Mr. Hunter's writing, but sadly this is not the case. The narrator was indeed incompetent...I felt like I was listening to someone who was contemplating suicide with each syllable. His "german" accent was more difficult to understand than that guy from the Micro Machines commercials of the 90's. Horrible purchase. DO NOT BUY.