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Hot Springs : A Novel by Stephen Hunter ( Hardcover - You can get anything
you want in postwar Hot Springs, Arkansas--girls, gambling, drugs, or booze--courtesy of gangster Owney Madden, a picaresque
character who affects jodhpurs, ascots, and an English accent to disguise his origins in New York's Hell's Kitchen. A county
prosecutor, ambitious for higher office, sees Madden's destruction as the key to his political future, and he thinks Medal
of Honor winner Earl Swagger is the right man to break Madden's stranglehold on the corrupt city.
A decent man haunted by his warrior past as well as the memory of his suffering at the hands of an abusive father, Earl
yearns for the peace and quiet of domesticity with his wife Junie and the child she carries. But his need for "the hot pounding
of the gun, the furious intensity of it all," is even more compelling. Earl's fearlessness in the face of danger is his defense
against guilt over having survived both the war and his father's cruelty. Tasked with training a commando cadre to destroy
Madden's criminal enterprise, Earl finds a way to channel his violent nature in the service of justice, despite his suspicions
about his boss's political agenda, which threatens to compromise his assignment and destroy his team
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