Stephen Hunter's latest "Bob the Nailer" (henceforth "BTN") book "The 47th Samurai" goes way beyond any previous BTN books, and while he does a masterful job of combining the legends of Bob Lee and his CMOH-winning father Earl, it's significant that Bob's legendary firearms handling skills are decidedly NOT part of the story-line. (Earl, though, is full-metal rampant with his beloved Thompson Machine Gun ... until it literally bites the dust.)If it's not too cheesy to say, this new novel is on the Cutting Edge of BTN and it's all Swords, all the time.
As did Bob Lee, you get to learn a lot of Japanese during the course of the book, and one semi-important part is the difference between the Katana (long sword), Wakizashsi (short sword), and Tanto (knife). This reminds me of E.R. Burroughs' "John Carter of Mars" books, where learning the culture is part of the exercises provided for the student.
Many of the passages are not for the faint-of-heart, including graphic descriptions of the injuries inflicted upon the human body by a sword, be it short or long. By the end of the book you will, should you choose to read it, know more than you ever asked about the successful Hidari Yokogiri "crosswind" cut, a horizontal left-to-right sword cut at the level of the belly, which leaves the recipient contemplating his bowels and blood covering his feet.
A mean feat, that. Especially when you, as was Bob Lee, are faced with six (6) opponents.
The consequences, we are assured, include the following dialogue:
oops, oof! omigosh! ulp!
(I swear I am not making this up. See Page 261)
Never fear, we're talking Bob the Nailer here and Bob has a brand new bag. (It's a red bag, containing a 400-year old sword which was used by the original 47 Ronin.)
Involved is a conspiracy to corner the Japanese Porn Industry, and I must admit that some of the passages here are a little too edgy for my personal taste.
I was a little disappointed in this, the latest (and probably the last) of the BTN novels. After all, he's 60 years old and this story takes place in 'the present'. One of the more charming characteristics of past BTN stories is that they all take place in 'the past', which somehow achieves a sort of finer quality of life. The villains then are bad, admittedly, but they're only Evil.
They're not sick.
Today's villains rely heavily on the "F-Bomb" and assorted sexual aberrations to achieve the requisite level of bad-ness. I suppose it's legitimate artistic license, but I miss the good old days when villains merely threatened to "enjoy your lady before I blow her head off" (Time To Hunt). Todays villains are much more despicable, which may be A Good Thing artistically although it exceeds my own personal despicability-acceptability index. But that's just me.
The hallmark of BTN novels is that at the end, Bob Lee (and Earl before him) always has an "Ace In The Hole" gimmick which allows The Defeat of The Villain at the end of the book. Here, we were down to the last dozen pages before the Epilogue and began to despair the lack of the signature passage. Oh me of little faith, Hunter comes through with a gimmick which exceeds all others, so rest assured that BTN prevails at the end.
I trust that I'm not upsetting any future reader by revealing that BTN wins the climactic battle?
My Recommendation:
Well, it's not the best of the BTN novels, but even the least wonderful is better than, say anything ever written by Richard North Patterson.
No, that's damning by faint praise, and Hunter doesn't deserve that.
How about: It's better than The Second Saladin and Tapestry of Spies, combined?
Wait, I've got it.
It's better than Havana!
Yeah, that's it.
Go ahead and buy it. I did. It's worth the Amazon dot com (or Costco) price of admission, and it will keep you enthralled for five hours, including potty breaks.
NB: When I read Time to Hunt, and Point of Impact, and Black Light, and Hot Springs, there were no potty breaks.
When I read Dirty White Boys, there were lots of breaks. But I got back to the book as soon as I got my courage up again.
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