[.ca] The 47th Samurai: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel (ISBN 0743238095)

The 47th Samurai by Stephen Hunter:
product note on the 1st edition hardcover The two copies I have seen both had a ragged (untrimmed) right-hand edge to the pages. I would speculate that this is intentional on the publisher's part, perhaps to give a more "antique/distressed" feel in keeping with the cover art. AMAZON.CA staff don't seem to be aware of this as of 10-Sep-2007.

Ambitious, Strange, Unsettling, NOT HIS BEST:
If you are brand-new to Bob Lee, perhaps this is not the best way to start the series. Many literary gourmets consider Bob Lee to be "the" most fully-developed 100% pure American hero in the history of modern literature, and with reason. Based on the earlier books in the series, this lanky, terse character, aka BOB THE NAILER, who (from Hunter himself) "looks like Clint Eastwood and talks like Gomer Pyle" makes John Wayne seem, in contrast, like a girlyboy. If you liked the Hollywood take on Bob Lee -- SHOOTER -- (which was hugely miscast BTW) you are going to LOVE the originals, which offer craft, skill, brilliant narrative and invariably a great payoff. Which brings us to 47th Samurai. You REALLY have to ask yourself whether Hunter, himself a Pulitzer Prize winner for non-fiction, was irritated at the soaring popularity of Bob Lee and deliberatly tried to throw his readers a curve..? This is, astonishly, a Bob Lee novel where the character never touches a gun in the story, not once, and, although in his mid-50's, masters the Samurai sword in one week and defeats the greatest swordsman in Japan. Oh yeah, here the usually terse Bob Lee in this one is suddenly Chatty Cathy, and suddenly speaks entire paragraphs. Summary -- OK action thriller but a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT to serious Hunter fans.

Bloody silly:
Hard old man Bob Lee Swagger achieves super-human proficiency with the samurai sword in a week of intensive training that brings to mind "The Karate Kid", in order to wreak bloody revenge on his enemies who were foolish enough to brutally dispatch a family he'd recently befriended. High on body count and low on credulity, Hunter constructs a wildly implausible plot but one that is completely unselfconscious. If you suspend your disbelief, it's a rollicking read and perfectly enjoyable; I just wish old man Swagger at some stage did the Indiana Jones trick and just shot the silly bugger waving a sword at him.