Sniper: The True Story of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp

By Jon Wells

Award-winning journalist Jon Wells reveals the life story and charts the three-year international manhunt for one of the FBI's most wanted killers, James Charles Kopp Part detective story, part noir psychological thriller, Sniper tells the disturbing and compelling story of how anti-abortion radical James Kopp hunted down physicians in Canada and the US who were performing abortion services. Wells visits Kopp's home town in California and follows his trail across Canada and Europe, taking readers inside the mind of Kopp, the son of a US marine, who believed he was on a righteous mission to save fetuses. The book also details how American and Canadian police and the FBI collaborated to bring the elusive Kopp down in France, following the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian, an obstetrician, in Buffalo, New York.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1443438332
• ISBN13: 9781443438339
• Release Date: April 2015
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

From Judith at J. Kaye's Book Blog

I remember October 1998 and the shooting in Buffalo, NY. I can still recall the feelings that came along with the news coverage of Dr. Arnett Slepian's murder. In his book SNIPER, Jon Wells took me back to that time period by retracing the steps of James Kopp. The book reads more like a thriller than nonfiction and I walked away with more knowledge. I was also aware Kopp escaped to Canada, but had no idea of the other countries involved. In SNIPER, Wells will walk you through the mind of a killer with his edge-of-your-seat style of journalism. Excellent book for true crime lovers. Without a doubt, this gets a five out of five rating from me. Awesome!

A riveting true crime book

Jon Wells, a journalist at a newspaper in Hamilton, Ontario, writes an engrossing detailed true crime book about the killing of Dr. Barnett Slepian in 1998 outside Buffalo, New York and the successful prosecution of James Kopp and his aiders and abettors. Dedicated to journalistic integrity, Wells sticks to the court record, its filings and his extensive interviews with investigators, prosecutors, defense counsel and Kopp's aiders and the witnesses in this international manhunt. That this book was authored by a Canadian journalist adhering to the record and eschewing the polemics of this horrific crime and the politics of abortion captivates the reader for its unbiased commitment to the highest journalistic standards. This is a book which could probably not be penned by an American journalist given the opinionated debasement of journalism in America today. While the book modestly suffers from the lack of an index and its occasional punctuation errors, it a fascinating read.