There is no way to like violent pulp and not like Stephen Hunter's books. These are guys' books if there ever was such a genre. Unlike Tom Clancy, the king of the guys' book, Hunter does not shy away from extremes. His heroes are a little deeper than Clancy's chise-jawed stalwart. The Swaggers et al are very matter-of fact about killing and Hunter is in no way ashamed. Much like Dennis Lehane (whose SHUTTER ISLAND I will look at shortly) he writes his protagonists as tortured with guilt and old sufferings. It is an easy way to get the reader on the side of the man who is going to kill more than a few bad guys before the novel ends.

Hot Springs is neither Hunter's best or worst book, it is simply typical. His hero is Earl Swagger, the father of the hero of a couple of his other books, Bobby Lee Swagger. He is war-hero still haunted by his abusive childhood and his younger brother's suicide. He is requested to join the war against Owney Maddox (based on a real-life gangster who did, in fact, run Hot Springs, Arkansas after WWII, it's a name similar to "Owney Madden"). Needless, to say, the pages of the book start to smell like gunsmoke and sound like the tinkling of spent shell before you're halfway through. Swagger manages to have a fistfight with Bugsy Siegel, drink countless bottles of bourbon, and kill countless hillbillies as well as father Bobby Lee.

This book is not what I would call "quality fiction", it's sort a cross between Dirty Harry and Forrest Gump, now that I think of it. It is raw, violent, male-bravado pulp with no other merit than to keep you turning the pages, but it does its job very well.