Dead Zero

From New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Hunter comes a thriller that pits former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger against the only man who might be able to outshoot him.

A marine sniper team on a mission in tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Whiskey 2-2 is ambushed by professionals using the latest high-tech shooting gear. Badly wounded, the team s sole survivor, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka the Cruise Missile, is determined to finish his job. He almost succeeds when a mystery blast terminates his enterprise, leaving a thirty-foot crater where a building used to be and where Sergeant Cruz was meant to be hiding. Months pass. Ray s target, an Afghan warlord named Ibrahim Zarzi, sometimes called The Beheader, becomes an American asset in the region and beyond, beloved by State, the Administration, and the Agency.

He arrives in Washington for consecration as Our Man in Kabul. And that brings Ray Cruz out of hiding. Swagger, the legendary hero of seven of Hunter s novels from Point of Impact to last year's bestselling I, Sniper is recruited by the FBI to stop the Cruise Missile from reaching his target. The problem is that the more Swagger learns about what happened in Zabol, the more he questions the US government s support of Zarzi and the more he identifies with Cruz as hunter instead of prey.

About the Author

Stephen Hunter won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism as well as the 1998 American Society of Newspaper Editors Award for Distinguished Writing in Criticism for his work as film critic at The Washington Post. He is the author of several bestselling novels, including Time to Hunt, Black Light, Point of Impact, and the New York Times bestsellers Havana, Pale Horse Coming, and Hot Springs. He lives in Baltimore.