Sniper by Theodore Taylor

Sniper is a different novel about 15-year-old Ben Jepson who is left alone to tend to his parents' wild cat preserve in South California. It's not the responsibility of the big cats that burdens Ben, but the responsibility of keeping them safe from somebody who stalks the night armed with a sniper waiting to kill the next of his cats.

Sniper is set in South California, around the 80's. For a novel set in South California, you would expect a happier feel to the plot, although the reader feels what emotions the characters experience : grief and anguish.

The story begins when Ben and the hired hands on the preserve are awakened by the sound of panicking peacocks, and they go outside to find Helen and Daisy, The Sisters, shot dead and bleeding on the ground, and most of the other cats released from their compounds. This isn't the last assault on the preserve, though. Despite Ben's and the hired hands' efforts to protect the cats, Rachael, one of the cheetahs, is shot dead one morning, followed by Rocky, a lion Ben raised right from the earliest stages. Now, along with the challenge of keeping most of the cats alive, Ben must work with Deputy Metcalf to discover who the culprit is, and why they have any reason to shoot the most gentle cats on the property.

The main characters in Sniper are Ben, his girlfriend Sandy, Luis Vargas, and Deputy Metcalf. The story, told from Ben's perspective, lets the readers express their grief and concern for the events in the book.

Theodore Taylor's style of writing is slow and gradual, yet exciting and intriguing. Theodore Taylor not only provides readers with an excellent story, but  expresses his characters' emotions so well that readers sort of turn into his characters, and live their parts in the story.

Theodore Taylor was born in North Carolina on June 23, 1921, and passed away more recently on October 26, 2006. He is the author of over fifty novels, including The Cay and The Bomb. He is the winner of eleven literary awards.

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