The long-anticipated origin story of legendary Marine, fan favorite, and father of literary icon Bob Lee takes us to the battlefields of World War II as Earl Swagger embarks on a top secret and deadly mission—from Pulitzer Prize­ –winning and New York Times bestselling Stephen Hunter, “one of the best thriller novelists around” ( The Washington Post ). July, 1944: The lush, rolling hills of Normandy are dotted with a new feature—German snipers. From their vantage points, they pick off hundreds of Allied soldiers every day, bringing the D-Day invasion to its knees. It’s clear that someone is tipping off these snipers with the locations of American GIs, but who? And how? General Eisenhower demands his intelligence service to find the best shot in the Allied military to counter this deadly SS operation. Enter Pacific hero Earl Swagger, assigned this crucial and bloody mission. With crosshairs on his back, Swagger can’t trust anyone as he infiltrates the shadowy corners of London and France for answers. From “a true master at the pinnacle of his craft” (Jack Carr, author of the Terminal List series), The Bullet Garden is an electrifying historical thriller that is sure to become a classic. "A true master at the pinnacle of his craft. No one does it better!" -- Jack Carr, former NAVY SEAL sniper and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Sky Mourning "One of the best thriller novelists around." ― The Washington Post "A tour de force of a war novel." ― Booklist (starred review) “Terrific writing, amusing literary references, fascinating gun lore, and intense action scenes help make this one of Hunter’s best. Established fans and newcomers alike will be enthralled.” ― Publishers Weekly "An electrifying historical thriller that is sure to become a classic." ― The Real Book Spy “Stephen Hunter’s THE BULLET GARDEN is a thriller with an awesome mix of humor, intrigue and descriptive writing that makes hairs on your neck stand at attention.” ― Ballistic Magazine Stephen Hunter is creator of the Bob Lee Swagger novels as well as many others. The retired chief film critic for The Washington Post , where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, he has also published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight . He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Chapter 1: Parris in the Summer CHAPTER 1 Parris in the Summer God was late. For six weeks he had been everywhere on the firing line. He was a deity with far-seeing eyes and an eerie professional calmness that separated him from every man any of them had known. He lectured, he taught, he named the parts and took them through the ceremonial intricacies of disassembly and assembly, and when the young recruits found themselves behind their spanking-new M1 Garand rifles, it seemed like he found time to kneel next to every boy—there were three hundred of them—issue gentle sight corrections, adjust a grip, test for a dominant eye, tighten a sling, slap a recalcitrant bolt handle forward, jiggle an en bloc clip of Government .30 into a breech, or press on the trigger-guard safety to which young fingers—the average recruit was 19.7 years old—were unaccustomed. He never seemed to sweat, as if that human attribute was itself too intimidated to perform. He never cursed or humiliated or threatened, as did endlessly their daily custodians, the drill instructors; his way was soothing, as if he knew enough real bad shit lay ahead for them and had determined not to add to it. This disposition was part of a legend that was growing toward the ecclesiastical, while in fact he wore no ribbons on his tunics and never spoke of the islands he’d been on. Though it was barely halfway through the year of our war 1944, it was said he’d already been on three. Most could name them: Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and Tarawa. The former was famous for its triple-canopy tropical rain forest, just the neighborhood for hiding the wily Japanese; the latter for its thousand-yard walk through the chest-high surf from amtracs hung up on unseen reefs while blue tracers flicked murderously through the air, killing randomly. He got through that. On the third day he’d been badly wounded, it was said, spending six months in the hospital. The Corps believed he’d seen enough combat and had assigned him here on Parris Island, the smudge of marshy land just south of Beaufort, South Carolina, and north of Georgia where young men were brutalized into Marines. He was the senior NCO in charge of Rifle Marksmanship, that central faith of the Marine Corps. But where was he? Did something dare impede the great Gunnery Sergeant Earl Swagger, or was this part of Marine stagecraft, designed to increase the aura around the man? They would never know. They swatted flies and sand fleas, glad of the island’s singular mercy, which was a ramshackle roof built over the amphitheater that somewhat distilled the near-lethal sun, and talked among themselves,