Diversions

Stephen Hunter wrote to say he was going to send me an advance reader’s edition of a 2013 Bob Lee Swagger novel, The Third Bullet. I was wondering how long it would take for the book to get to Australia. Not long as it turns out. And sure enough, today after a long day figuring out how to transform this data into that data, I trudged down shopping center by a long meandering path, bought a pound of coffee and stopped at the post office. And there was this parcel in the box together with a misaddressed parcel of documents entirely in Japanese.

I took the Japanese stuff to the lady at the counter and went straight home. To those who’ve read the earlier books, Swagger needs no introduction. What is Bob up to now? This time he crosses paths with something almost as storied as he is: the Kennedy Assassination. The back cover blurb tantalizingly describes the contents:

Pitting his legendary hero, ex-Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger, against the rifle rime of the century, Hunter presents a theory based on his deep knowledge of ballistic forensics that four thousand published authors and conspiracy theorists — and the Warren Commission — have never fully explored. And fifty years after the shots that brought America to its knees, Bob Lee Swagger proves that it’s never too late for justice.

And it’s never too late I guess to either put some coffee on the boil or pop a couple of cans of beers (it’ll have to be one or the other) and see what Bob Swagger is really up to.