Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dead Zero | 2010 | Stephen Hunter | Buy |
| 2 | Soft Target | 2011 | Stephen Hunter | Buy |
The Ray Cruz novels feature a younger generation of sniper in Stephen Hunter’s fictional universe. Ray Cruz is a Marine marksman whose story overlaps with Bob Lee Swagger’s in Dead Zero (2010), where both characters are involved in the same operation. Soft Target (2011) follows Cruz as he responds to a terrorist attack on a Minnesota shopping mall during Black Friday.
The two Ray Cruz books let Hunter write about contemporary military operations and domestic terrorism while connecting to his established Swagger mythology. Cruz represents a newer breed of warrior compared to the Vietnam-era Bob Lee Swagger.