Die Trying

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The second Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child. These books are fun. Nothing more. But also nothing less. There's something to be said for that.

In this one, Reacher gets involved sheerly by coincidence. Walking by a Chicago dry cleaner, he helps out a young woman with a bum knee. But nearly immediately, she's swept up by a gang of violent kidnappers; Reacher's taken too. This turns out to be rather good luck for the young woman, very bad luck for the kidnappers. Because Reacher is someone you don't want within miles of your nefarious plot.

Style: lots of short sentences. Packed with testosterone. This one's written in third person. The one before this was in first person. (Why? Well, here's why.)

Doesn't matter. There's always reason to keep turning pages, because the next action scene is, I promise, at most a few pages away. They are imaginative and usually produce an impressive body count. The plot is ludicrous, with villains that are clever and deadly one minute, inept the next. My favorite bit: the hyper-resourceful Reacher can rattle off every city that contains a Federal Reserve branch. I don't think Lee Child ever met a deus ex machina he didn't like.


Last Modified 2024-01-30 3:51 PM EDT