Boasting the work of 10 contributing writers, The Sniper Anthology: Snipers of the Second World War is an astonishing collection of biographies of some of that war's most accomplished marksmen.

The book is full of interesting details, from the manner in which Bert Kemp altered -- some would say vandalized -- the sight on his M1 Garand while traveling on a troop ship to Britain, to a long-distance duel between an exhausted Vassili Zaitsev and his patient German counterpart, to the harrowing experiences of Irish sniper Patrick Devlin as he, badly wounded, tried to reach medical aid.

Biographical details of the snipers are interesting -- after all, what makes a person suited to the job? -- and descriptions of various missions and encounters are gripping, sometimes exciting, edge-of-your-seat narratives that put you in their shoes.

Each biography is necessarily brief, given the brevity of the book and the amount of information it attempts to cover. The authors fortunately provide references to help readers find more detailed information in other texts, if more detail is required.

The book covers the war from many angles. Chapters include "Simo Hayha: The White Death," "Lyudmila Pavlichenko: Most Dangerous Woman on Earth," "Bert Kemp: A Reluctant Warrior with a Deadly Gift," "Operation Foxley: British Sniping & the Hunt for Hitler" and "Japanese Sniper: A Long Walk to a Short Life." (The latter chapter focuses on a fictitious composite of Japanese snipers in the Pacific theater, illustrating what little is known of them; few, according to the endnotes, survived the war.)

There are certainly more thorough explorations of the sniper's role in World War II, but this anthology is a concise look at the soldiers who did a tough, hazardous job in dicey conditions. Recommended for WW2 enthusiasts.