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Book summary and reviews of The 47th Samurai by Stephen Hunter

The 47th Samurai by Stephen Hunter

The 47th Samurai

A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

by Stephen Hunter

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Sep 2007
    384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Bob Lee Swagger and Philip Yano are bound together by a single moment at Iwo Jima, 1945, when their fathers, two brave fighters on opposite sides, met in the bloody and chaotic battle for the island. Only Earl Swagger survived.

More than sixty years later, Yano comes to America to honor the legacy of his heroic father by recovering the sword he used in the battle. His search has led him to Crazy Horse, Idaho, where Bob Lee, ex-marine and Vietnam veteran, has settled into a restless retirement and immediately pledges himself to Yano's quest.

Bob Lee finds the sword and delivers it to Yano in Tokyo. On inspection, they discover that it is not a standard WWII blade, but a legendary shin-shinto katana, an artifact of the nation. It is priceless but worth killing for. Suddenly Bob is at the center of a series of terrible crimes he barely understands but vows to avenge.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"While the action builds to the inevitable climax, the joy of the journey will keep readers turning the pages." - PW.

This information about The 47th Samurai was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Stephen Hunter Author Biography

Author photograph by Kelly Campbell

Stephen Hunter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1946, and grew up in the Chicago area. He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1968 and then spent two years in the United States Army as a ceremonial soldier in the 3rd Infantry in Washington, D.C.

Stephen Hunter retired as a chief film critic for The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism. He has written several novels, published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight.

Some of his recent works include Dead Zero (2010), The Third Bullet (2013) and Sniper's Honor (2014).

He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

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