personal

personal
jack reacher #19
lee child
fiction/thriller/suspense
delacorte press
published 2014

Someone has taken a shot at the president of France in the City of Light.  The bullet was American.  The distance between the gunman and the target was exceptional.  How many snipers can shoot from three-quarters of a mile with total confidence?  Very few, but John Kott - an American marksman gone bad - is one of them.  And after fifteen years in prison, he's out, unaccounted for, and likely drawing a bead on a G8 summit packed with enough world leaders to tempt any assassin.

Things I loved:
Jack Reacher
Casey Nice
Jack kicking ass as usual

What I didn't love:
I don't even know what happened

Well, that's not true, but it kind of is.  Reacher is looking for Kott.  We know he's looking for Kott and we know that someone is helping him, hired him, and they have to go through them to get to him.  So there are approximately 270 pages dealing with the gangs, one gang in particular mostly and 3 pages dealing with Kott.  I felt cheated.

There just wasn't much to this one.  I didn't feel that same ole' Reacher magic and it made me sad. :(

high heat

high heat
jack reacher
lee child #17.5
fiction/novella/crime
delacorte press
published 2013

July 1977.  Jack Reacher is almost seventeen, and he stops in New York City on the way to visit his brother at West Point.  The summer heat is suffocating, the city is bankrupt, and the mad gunman known as Sam is still on the loose.  Reacher meets a woman with a problem and agrees to help her....but then the power grid fails and the lights go out, plunging the lawless city into chaos.  What does a visiting teenager do in the dark?  If that visiting teenager is Jack Reacher, the answer is plenty.

An interesting little snippet into Reacher's life more than 30 years ago.  There is absolutely no reason to write these stories about him as a teenager, except, I think to insert such events as the terror that David Berkowitz caused in the 70's.  I say this because there is no difference between him as a 16 year old and him as a 46 year old.  You would never think that you were in the mind of a 16 year old because he think exactly like he does as an adult.  He's basically the same size as he is now so even that isn't different.

Of course, that's not to say that this isn't a fun Reacher read.  He's coming to the rescue and the results are....surprising.  I was a little disappointed in the ending, but it is what it is.  Reacher's not really known for his happy endings, right?

a wanted man

a wanted man
jack reacher #17
lee child
suspense/crime/general badassery
delacorte
published 2012

Four people in a car, hoping to make Chicago by morning.  One man driving, another telling stories that don't add up.  A woman in the back, silent and worried.  And a hitchhiker with a broken nose.  An hour behind them, the FBI descends on an old pumping station where a man was stabbed to death - the knife work professional, the killers nowhere to be seen.

All Jack Reacher wanted was a ride to Virginia.  All he did was stick out his thumb.  But he soon discovers he has hitched more than a ride.  He has tied himself to a massive conspiracy, in which nothing is what it seems, and nobody is telling the truth.

I'm not kidding you.  If you only reads books from one author, only read one series, it should be this one series by Lee Child.

Jack Reacher is one of the best fictional badasses that has ever graced a page.  He's freaking scary smart, can't stand someone being wronged (especially women and children, but men too - at least good men).  He kicks ass.  Literally.  And he gets revenge.  He gives people what they deserve.  But what I really love the most about him?  He has morals.  He can't just walk away when he knows he can do something about it.  The best example of that:

"It gives me some kind of chance to survive the night."  "How are those better odds?  If you come back with me, you're guaranteed to survive the night."  "No," Reacher said.  "If I come back with you, I'm guaranteed to die of shame."

These books are getting funnier as well.  The longer Reacher is out of the military, the more his dry humor comes out.

Reacher had no patience for people who claimed that y was a vowel.

For some reason that struck me as funny.

My favorite lines had to do with an annoying motel clerk.

"It's the FBI, for the man with the broken nose.  That would be you, I suppose." Reacher said, "Pretty soon it could be either one of us, if you don't stop yapping at me."

and

She hadn't shot the fat man.  She was clearly a person of considerable patience.

The story is fast and there is almost always something important happening.  And there's always this big conspiracy or crime going on (of course, otherwise what would be the point), but it's almost like a backstory.  The story is not about the crime or the mystery to be solved.  The story is how Reacher reacts to that story and the hell he brings upon the criminals.

It's truly a sight to behold.

the affair

Quite simply this Jack Reacher story is about both beginnings and endings.

It's 1997 and Reacher is sent out to Carter Crossing, Mississippi to investigate undercover.  A woman has been found, throat cut and suspicion has fallen on the local base.  Only, it can't.  The Army can't afford to have the spot light on this base and they can't afford for an investigation to prove what they already have an inkling about.  So Garber sends Reacher in to find out what's really going on and how best to protect the Army.

Of course, Reacher isn't going to assist in some kind of cover up.  He's too good for that and maybe that's why Garber sends him.  But this story, even though it takes place almost 15 years ago, shows a much more decisive Reacher. 

Here and there you'll find little Easter egg facts inserted for those who have read the series in its entirety.  Neagley makes an appearance and the story certainly does set up the events that will happen in the first Reacher novel, The Killing Floor.

This book doesn't disappoint and in fact, I'm slightly sad that certain characters never show up in the series, but then that's not surprising considering Lee Child's style.  The book answers a lot of questions about Reacher and why he really mustered out.  I let the book lead me along the whole way and kept changing my mind at every single turn.

He's still my favorite book hero.