Best novel I've read this year. Contrary to the comment below, the switching back and forth between the bad guy and the hero made the book, in my opinion.

Stephen Hunter writes well but this book is about 100 pages too long...I could do without the section speaking in the voice of the assassin.

Great finish against all odds. A bit tedious when the same events were told in different perspective by Oswald, the master mind and the sixty seven year old Swagger. Yes, both cliche and authentic in this original JFK assassin tale.

ENFPWOMAN: suggest you go back and read Hunter from the start of the Earl Swagger books, then the Bob Lee Swagger books. Good sized public libraries have most of them. Indeed, you have found a treasure. I've read all of his books at least twice. You will recognize the great book, "Point of Impact," as the basis for the movie "Sniper," with Mark Wahlberg as Bob Lee.

The writing here is of a very high calibre. I'm only 48 pages into this book (my first Stephen Hunter novel), and I find myself re-reading certain sentences/paragraphs, enjoying the sheer beauty with which Hunter caresses the language. Hunter's 15 novels look like a treasure revealed.

"Like James Ellroy's American Tabloid (but set mostly in the present) or Stephen King's 11/22/63 (without the time travel), The Third Bullet reimagines the events surrounding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy - and comes up with a conspiracy-heavy yet plausible scenario for what really happened that day. In this 8th thriller starring Bob Lee Swagger, we find the Vietnam vet drawn into investigating the murder of a novelist who'd been researching the assassination, and from there into the conspiracies swirling around JFK's death. In addition to great writing, conspiracy theories, and ballistics details, fans will enjoy the connections author Stephen Hunter draws between himself (and Bob Lee Swagger) and the dead novelist (and the hero he wrote about, Billy Don Trueheart)." February 2013 Thrillers and Suspense newsletter http://www.nextreads.com/Display2.aspx?SID=5acc8fc1-4e91-4ebe-906d-f8fc5e82a8e0&N=599486

Perhaps the world doesn't need another JFK conspiracy theory novel, but this is an excellent read, with a plausible story-line, excellent character development, particularly the "Ivy" CIA agent, in full blossomed arrogance and pomposity and of course heroic linchpin, Bob Lee Swagger. In full disclosure, this is not a typical Swagger, "shoot 'em up" but is more intellectually based. As Hunter notes in acknowledgements, he doesn't alter the generally accepted knowns surrounding the actual event, but does spice the arena with just enough possibilities to make you think and have an enjoyable read. It's very well done.