QUESTIONS

1. What is it about Willy (and about Joe) that makes Joe so determined to support his colleague?

2. How are the violent scenes described? Are they realistic?

3. Is this a typical bad guys vs good guys detective story? Are there elements that distinguish it from other action books you have read?

4. Are police procedures realistically described? What did you learn about the way the police operate?

5. To what extent does Willy’s experience in Vietnam contribute to his problems?

6. Did you find any “detective novel” clichés in The Sniper’s Wife? What is original about this novel that separates it from the usual mystery/detective story?

7. Why is the book called The Sniper’s Wife, since she is dead when the book opens? Why not call it The Sniper?

8. Is Mary a “female Robin Hood”, or someone more sinister?

9. What encounters or events help Willy achieve clarity about his childhood, his war service and his failed marriage?

10. Do you think Willy has come to terms with his past by the end of the book? What makes you think he has or has not?

11. One critic described Archer Mayor as a writer who “digs for the deeper moral issues.” What issues does he deal with in this novel?

12. Brazilian author Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, author of a series featuring Inspector Espinosa, said in an interview that one of the reasons he was inspired to write detective novels was because “mystery novels are the direct descendents of mythological thought.” What mythological concepts can you find in The Sniper’s Wife?