The topic is very specific, and of interest to a specific set of readers. Snipers -- whether revered as excellent marksmen with incalculable skill or reviled as cold-blooded killers who take lives from a distance -- are a subset of military history that dates back since riflemen first realized they could shoot accurately from a great distance.

The Sniper Encyclopaedia: An A-Z Guide to World Sniping by John Walter is a highly detailed resource on the subject, providing details on the men and women who have been identified as successful snipers; the weapons, ammunition and accessories they have used over the years; and the battles and settings where sniping played an important role.

Open this hefty book at random and you're sure to find something interesting, whether it's spelled out in succinct entries or analyzed in more detail in longer articles. This is not a book meant for reading from cover to cover -- although I have no doubt there are enthusiasts who would enjoy doing exactly that -- but it's a trove of information for anyone intrigued by the subject.

I opened the book first to a two-page history of Enfield sniper rifles, used extensively by British soldiers during World War I. I turned the page and read an entry on John Fairall, a British army sniper active in the late 1800s and early 1900s, until he himself was killed by a German sniper's bullet in 1915. Skipping ahead, I found a page with entries on U.S. inventor Benjamin Jenks, Austrian optical-sight maker Karl Kahles and several Red Army snipers: Sergey Kalimbet, Aleksandr Kalinin, Nikolay Karasyov, Semyon Karpachev and Ivan Karpov. Another flip through the pages landed me on a three-page article on Sharps sniper rifles, popular in the U.S. during the American Civil War.

Explored in bite-sized chunks, The Sniper Encyclopaedia is packed with detailed information, presented clearly and concisely for anyone interested in the subject. History buffs might enjoy it, and writers needing information on this specialized type of combat will find this resource indispensable.