The Sniper and the Wolf

Starred review from March 9, 2015
McEwen and Koloniar’s outstanding third Sniper Elite novel (after 2014’s Target America) finds Master Chief Gil Shannon atop a freight car on the outskirts of Paris gunning for Chechen Islamist warlord Dokka Umarov. A battle with an unidentified opposing sniper ends with Gil on the run in the company of Maj. Ivan Dragunov of the Tenth Independent Spetsnaz Brigade, with whom he battles a rogue Spetsnaz team lead by Sasha Kovalenko, a legendary sniper known as the Wolf. The ultimate goal is to break up a future attack on a Georgian oil pipeline run by British Petroleum, but this is just an excuse to put Gil and Ivan in motion as they charge across the international landscape leaving behind a sea of enemy bodies. At one point a character says of Gil, “When that crazy bastard gets going, he doesn’t stop until there’s nobody left standing!” This is gut-churning, relentless, must-read military fiction. Agent: Ian Kleinert, Objective Entertainment.