Hot Springs (Earl Swagger)

by StephenHunter (Author)

• Used

  Mass Market Paperback
  2001

  $3.50

  The undisputed master of the tough thriller, New York Times bestselling author Stephen Hunter delivers a masterpiece of crime fiction set in 1940s Arkansas, where law and corruption ricochet like slugs from a .45 automatic.
  HOT SPRINGS
  Earl Swagger is tough as hell. But even tough guys have their secrets. Plagued by the memory of his abusive father, apprehensive about his own impending parenthood, Earl is a decorated ex-Marine of absolute integrity -- and overwhelming melancholy. Now he's about to face his biggest, bloodiest challenge yet.
  It is the summer of 1946, organized crime's garish golden age, when American justice seems to have gone to seed for good. Nowhere is this more true than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the reigning capital of corruption. When the district attorney vows to bring down the mob, Earl is recruited to run the show. As casino raids erupt into nerve-shattering combat amid screaming prostitutes and fleeing johns, the body count mounts -- along with the suspense.

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $3.50

  This is the summer of 1946. Haunted by memories of his experiences in the blood-soaked Pacific War and of his abusive father, ex-marine Earl Swagger believes himself almost beyond redemption: an angry man with nowhere to go in the post-war peace. But there is a new war, within America's heartland: the war against organised crime. Recruited by the District Attorney in Hot Springs, Arkansas to take on the Mob head to head, Earl and his team of rookie cops find they have to do battle not only with heavily armed mobsters but also with politicians. No one anywhere is to be trusted.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2000

  $15.10

  In the summer of 1946, the most wide-open town in America is Hot Springs, Arkansas, a city of ancient, legendary corruption. While the pilgrims take the cure in the mineral-rich 142-degree water that bubbles from the earth, the brothels and casinos are the true source of the town's prosperity. It is run by an English-born gangster named Owney Maddox, who represents the New York syndicate and rules his empire like a Saxon lord while sporting an ascot and jodhpurs. But it is all about to be challenged. A newly elected county prosecutor wants to take on the big boys and save the city's soul (he also wouldn't mind being the next governor). He begins a war on the gambling interests and, knowing the war will be long and bloody, hires an ex-Marine sergeant, Earl Swagger, who won the Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima, to run it. Swagger knows how to fight with guns as well as any man in the world. But he is haunted: the savage fighting he just barely survived and the men he left behind in the Pacific still shadow his mind, leaving a terrible melancholy. There are even darker memories: a murdered father who beat him mercilessly and drove a younger brother to suicide. And he's torn by his own impending fatherhood, as his wife, Junie, nears term. It isn't that Earl Swagger is afraid of dying; more scary still, it's possible that he yearns for it. The gangsters fight back, setting up a campaign of ambush and counterambush in the brothels, casinos and alleys of the City of the Vapors. Raids erupt into full-out combat amid screaming prostitutes and fleeing johns. The body count mounts. Meanwhile, the politics behind the war are shifting: Will the prosecuting attorney stick with his raiders orsell them out to curry favor with the state's political machine? Will Owney Maddox defeat the raiders but lose a personal battle against a cunning rival from the West who foresees a Hot Springs in the Nevada desert as the future franchise city of organized crime? But most important, will Earl Swagger survive yet another hard war, not merely with his body but also with his soul intact? Packed with page-turning action, sex, sin and crime, Stephen Hunter's Hot Springs is at once a relentlessly violent and deeply touching story.