Where to start? I bought this book on a whim thinking that it was a bit more up to date than many of the older books I have been reading. I was looking for a good, solid book by a regular hunter and his impressions of Africa and other places. I had hoped for a little bit of "soul" in it.

It started out well as Chilton mentioned that he was going to share how his hunting around the world changed his world view and what he thought he thought about peoples, cultures and life. My interest was piqued.

In summary, the book is a diary of seven hunts he made to Africa, Alaska, Australia, Mongolia and Russia. He shares honestly about the ups and downs on each trip. His first trip was to Kenya at age 15 with his father. This trip appeared to be a bit of a disaster as he missed shot after shot due to flinching but overcame it somewhat by the end of the 28 days. Next trip was a graduation present after college to Tanzania - more of the same except his shooting improved. Seems his dad is well off and owns a ranch in Texas for deer hunting. The next trips are well described, but honestly, nothing dramatic, nothing that sets these trips apart other than they are his trips. He states that he took a few top 10 record trophies but never had them registered. He took several nice buff.

A trip to Alaska was not a good one nor was the trip to Russia based on his trip report. He took bears, but females and did not seem to enjoy the guides. The trip to Australia was a bit of a mess due to weather, terrain and the guide. The trip to Mongolia sounded fun but he states he was rather home sick for his wife and kids.

Another thing I do not fully grasp is the title of the book - "A Bullet Well Placed". He mentions several times about missed shots, long follow ups, lost game. He did not seem to be a great shot, but I could be mistaken.

I did not see or "feel" the changes to his world view that he mentioned he had in the introduction. I did not see much more than a series of hunt reports.

Overall, Chilton does a good job of this as a diary of his trips. Much like Seia and a few others who wrote diary type books. He seems a nice guy but his trip report/book was not much different than some of the better trip reports here on AR (Read BillC's or JudgeG's reports and you will see what I mean)

I do not recommend this book unless you can pick it up very cheap - not that it is a cheap presentation, but that it is nothing special. I felt like I was watching someone's old home movies reading it. I rate this a 3 for content and a 5 for effort (out of ten) and do not recommend it.

Sorry... I had hoped for better myself.