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A Wanted Man (Jack Reacher #17)

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 9,503 ratings · 1,620 reviews

Reacher is back! A Wanted Man is a new masterpiece of suspense—from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child.

Four people in a car, hoping to make Chicago by morning. One man driving, eyes on the road. Another man next to him, telling stories that don’t add up. A woman in the back, silent and worried. And next to her, a huge man with a broken nose, hitching a ride e...more

Audio CD, Abridged

Published September 11th 2012 by Random House Audio (first published January 1st 2012)

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Jan 05, 2013 Kwoomac rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, action, amateur-sleuth, contemporary-lit, fast-read, reviewed, strong-female-protag, suspense

Ok, I like Jack Reacher novels. They're formulaic, completely predictable, and the action scenes are fun, in a shoot-em-up kind of way. I do continue to have a slight problem with his juvenile taunting, which often deteriorates into "yo mamma" territory, but maybe that's just me.

What I really need to talk about is the upcoming movie "Jack Reacher" based on the first book One Shot. Tom Cruise is playing Jack Reacher! Nothing against Tom Cruise (as an actor) but seriously?

Here's a description of...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Carolyn rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, series

This book felt sloppy and tired. Certainly the weakest in the series. Not enough cool fights, not enough female action. Just a quickie.

7 likes · like · see review

Nov 03, 2012 Jim A rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On the positive side, it's a Reacher book.

On the negative side, it's not the same Reacher I have grown to enjoy reading.

First, it starts where Worth Dying For ended. The problem with that is there was a prequel in between and I have very little recollection of the plot of WDF, which itself was a continuation of 61 Hours. Needless to say, I had no idea how Reacher's nose became broken by the guy with the shotgun. Then comes the endless thoughts of Reacher during the car trip. A lot of it comes t...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Jennifer rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: I don't dislike anyone enough to recommend reading this book.

This book was so bad that it made me crabby to read it. I am such a fan of the Reacher series that I can't believe how awful and painful of a read this was. The story is painfully slow ... and boring. No exaggeration, Reacher is in a car on the world's most boring car ride for the first 30 chapters of the book. 30 chapters. 5 hours. That is how long the first 30 chapters are in audio book. 5 hours. 300 minutes. 18,000 seconds. In. a. car. Doing nothing.

Here is a conundrum. What is worse than rea...more This book was so bad that it made me crabby to read it. I am such a fan of the Reacher series that I can't believe how awful and painful of a read this was. The story is painfully slow ... and boring. No exaggeration, Reacher is in a car on the world's most boring car ride for the first 30 chapters of the book. 30 chapters. 5 hours. That is how long the first 30 chapters are in audio book. 5 hours. 300 minutes. 18,000 seconds. In. a. car. Doing nothing.

Here is a conundrum. What is worse than reading the most boring Reacher book ever written? It is listening to the most boring Reacher story ever written while Reacher simultaneously has a broken nose throughout the book. You know, someone who would sound like this "my node id tuffy" instead of "my nose is stuffy". Imagine Reacher speaking with a tuffy node. For 14+ hours. 840 minutes. 50,400 seconds. A tuffy node. Just try talking aloud as if you had one, even for 1 minute. 60 seconds. Trust me, you will find the sound so annoying that you will take a vow of silence the next time you truly do have a tuffy node.

The story is boring, the characters (including my beloved Jack) are boring, and the unnecessary repetition of the most mundane detail make me question whether Lee Child is now paid by the number of words in a book rather than for any measure of quality.

I awaited the arrival of this book with barely a measure of patience. I started trying to purchase at 11PM CDT on Sep. 10 thinking it might be available since it was then Sep. 11 in EDT (FYI, it didn't work and I had to wait until after midnight, which I did). I believe I finalized my purchase via iTunes at about 12:08 a.m. I couldn't wait to get my Reacher on. Not only will I now never, ever pay for another Reacher book (though I might check it out from the library), but I am tempted to write Lee Child and ask for my money back. THAT is how awful I find this book.

I have read every Reacher book, many more than once, and many repurchased in audio so that I could get my Reacher fix while waiting for the next installment. I am willing to suspend reality in favor of a good read. I am even willing to read/listen to some less than stellar books for the sake of an overall decent or entertaining story. I found the last couple of installments to be a bit disappointing but still held out hope that "the next one would be better". Sadly, it seems that is simply not going to happen.

For any true Reacher fans, I suspect you will need to read it for yourself in order to believe just how bad it is. At least save yourself the wasted money and get it from the library. It's a real pisser to spend so much money on a beloved series only to end up with such a stinker of a story.

For anyone new to Reacher, run fast and far far away from #17 and in fact maybe just stop before you get to #15. I promise if you read this one first it is unlikely that you will want to read any of the others. I know I wouldn't.(less)

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Mar 09, 2013 Maggie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't understand the bad reviews for A Wanted Man. I enjoyed the "boring" parts - found them atmospheric and suspenseful. This latest installment may have lacked the usual amount of action, but it still had that Reacher-Is-The-Man magic. I must agree with another reviewer though - Child didn't segue between the previous novel and this one correctly. I mean, didn't he get a broken nose in that bunker? And now he had nothing to do with what happened in the bunker? Did I miss something? That's ok...more

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Sep 23, 2012 BamaGal rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: suspense-thriller, arc-from-author, netgalley-edelweiss

Disappointing read. I know that it is coming to the end of this series, and I wanted to love this book; but I just didn't. It's always nice to have a good Jack Reacher story in my hands; and this was a good story, it just wasn't great. It was just good in a series of mostly 'great' reads.

This was one of the more convoluted plots in a Reacher story. He tends to go in, use his brains and brawn to get the job done; and go on to the next stop on his long and winding road. There were more extraneous...more Disappointing read. I know that it is coming to the end of this series, and I wanted to love this book; but I just didn't. It's always nice to have a good Jack Reacher story in my hands; and this was a good story, it just wasn't great. It was just good in a series of mostly 'great' reads.

This was one of the more convoluted plots in a Reacher story. He tends to go in, use his brains and brawn to get the job done; and go on to the next stop on his long and winding road. There were more extraneous and outside forces working in this one than in any Reacher novel I've read; and not all of them worked. I liked the beginning to the middle of the story fine; but then the story went off on a tangent that was not one that I particularly enjoyed. It wound up being much more politics within the various Federal agencies than I wanted to know about.

Also, Reacher tended to annoy me a few times in this one. We all know he's very intelligent; but I felt like it was being beat into my head this time around. There was too much detail about many things, especially when Reacher was describing just how smart he really was to the reader, and how he could figure everything out for the reader and to the reader. --- This was right after a Federal Agent got shot in the head, and how Reacher explained to the reader that person was dead. --- "He knew all of that, instantly and instinctively. And he knew knew ***** was dead. He knew it for sure. There was no mistaking the sound. He had heard such sounds before. It had been a head shot, through and through, in and out, 168 grains at more that twenty-six hundred feet per second, hitting with more than twenty-six hundred foot-pounds of energy, dropping more than twenty-six inches from our hundred yards, like a curveball finding the strike zone. Not survivable. Not even remotely." The book was full of these little gems. Yes, we know you are smart and figure these things out; but don't beat us over the head with it and explain everything in minute detail.

Good story, not great; but this series is miles above many other series of this ilk. A bump in the road; and I look forward to the next Reacher adventure, hoping that I enjoy it more than I did this one.(less)

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Oct 15, 2012 Fred Forbes rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first book in my original kindle from years back is a Jack Reacher novel and I have long been a fan. But looking at the polarity of reviews on this one, I almost passed but felt I owed it a read. The criticisms are just - the book has long boring stretches, the number games get old real fast, and it is repetitive in places. (Are there really that many folks that know the area code, population, size in square miles and ranking in GDP of most major metro areas?) The story gets a bit convoluted...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Beth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

3.5 stars, bumped down to 3. I enjoyed the beginning and middle of this book more than I did the end. If the end had been as good as the rest, I'd've probably given it 4 stars. I don't think it packed the usual punch of a Reacher novel.

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Sep 23, 2012 Harry Hemstreet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not one of his best, but still satisfying for us Reacher fans. Cannot visualize pipsqueek Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher.

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May 21, 2013 David rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm a fan of the Reacher novels, and now I have read them all. This one, I am sad to say, falls far short of the previous works.

Why?

First, one plot idea is developed on a silly idea-- that a man driving a car can watch in the rearview mirror a woman in the back seat blinking in a complex code. Blinking to the left is one part of the alphabet, to the right another. Using this code was:

left 6
left 7
left 8
left 3
right 9
right 4

If you didn't get that.. it spells STUPID... really, you can drive down th...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Mark Neumayer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am late to the phenomenon that is Jack Reacher since this is only the second book in the series that I have read. While I did like the book, that comes with a fairly strong caveat - I liked it while I was reading the book but afterwards when I was finished I found myself strangely unsatisfied. The feeling was something akin to eating a horribly over-sugared donut - enjoyable while it is happening but all sorts of regrets pile up afterwards.
I've been thinking a lot about why I felt this way. I...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Sandie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-books, thrillers-and-mystery, political, contemporary-lit

Lee Child seems to make a point of describing Reacher’s build in detail – from his 6’5” frame, 3XLT clothing, 50” chest, and large hands and long arms (that almost drag the ground when he is seated in a chair). Perhaps this is to reinforce the fact that Reacher is NOT the diminutive Tom Cruise as Hollywood appears to have insisted. With a freshly broken nose held together with a piece of silver duct tape, Reacher is having a difficult time hitching a ride. It is a cold night in Nebraska and fift...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Samantha rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not the best Jack Reacher book, but certainly not the worst book I've read this year (Stuart Woods and Laurell K. Hamilton can fight over that award!). Jack is once again hitchhiking through America when he is picked up by a car carrying 2 men and 1 woman, all in identical clothing he assumes is some sort of uniform. Jack is filthy, has a busted nose, and is in dire need of warmth and a good shower. The busted nose is from the last book...carry over. As a backdrop, alphabet city has become invol...more Not the best Jack Reacher book, but certainly not the worst book I've read this year (Stuart Woods and Laurell K. Hamilton can fight over that award!). Jack is once again hitchhiking through America when he is picked up by a car carrying 2 men and 1 woman, all in identical clothing he assumes is some sort of uniform. Jack is filthy, has a busted nose, and is in dire need of warmth and a good shower. The busted nose is from the last book...carry over. As a backdrop, alphabet city has become involved in a stabbing murder in a small town just behind Jack and the people in the car. The FBI, CIA, local sheriff, and more are in on the case which is getting as clear as mud the more they look into it. After going through 2 traffic stops and being entrusted with driving the car he's riding in, Jack notices that the women has a sever blinking problems and then his brain tumbles to the fact she is trying to communicate. You can just skip the written process each time she goes into a blinking frenzy and read the message. It will keep you sane. Though this, he learns the woman has been kidnapped and the men have guns. She's counting on him to be her hero. Riding in a car is about much fun as riding in a car with a bunch of sleeping and/or hostile people can be and there is pretty much no dialogue except for the running commentary in Jack's head. After slogging through about the first 100 pages, I began to skim the book and just read dialogue where ever I found it. This did not complicate matters at all. Once you figure out who is who, that there are several story lines going on, and get the general idea of what is going on (government conspiracy du jour), then you are good to go. I think the only reason I finished reading the book was to see 1) if Jack with sleep with either of the two main female characters (nope) and 2) to figure out how you could talk for a solid minute without using the letter "a" (read the book to find out or skip to the end). The concept was good, but I really expect more head bashing when I read a Reacher novel. Of course, as he points out, he is getting old.(less)

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Jan 21, 2013 Jay Connor rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What were they thinking when they cast Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher?

This is the 17th in the Jack Reacher series. But my first. Reacher fits into the long line of dark, loner characters. Since leaving the Army, Reacher has been a drifter. He wanders throughout the U.S. because he was accustomed to being told where to go, when to go and what to do for every day of his life from military childhood to military adulthood. He also felt he never got to know his own country, having spent much of his youth...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Indiabookstore rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is my first encounter with Jack Reacher, the protagonist of Lee Child’s – ‘A Wanted Man’ and when I reached the last page, I actually realized that this is the 17th book in the series of the Jack Reacher Thriller! I chided myself and decided that all was not lost! I could now work my way backwards… Coming to ‘A Wanted Man’…

The plot unfolds with an eye witness’s vague description of a crime to the county sheriff. (Location? Unknown!) Simultaneously, followed by Jack Reacher trying to hitch a...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Eric Wright rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, local-library, thriller-suspense

I picked up this, the 17th of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, at an opportune time. I had become morosely tired of stories that wandered all over creation as seen through the eyes of a myriad of characters. Child's story unfolds in a straight-forward, chapter by chapter linear fashion full of building suspense.

I have not always enjoyed Jack Reacher as a character. He seems so unique as to be bizarre. He hitch-hikes his way across the American heartland without a suitcase or even backpack. Every...more I picked up this, the 17th of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, at an opportune time. I had become morosely tired of stories that wandered all over creation as seen through the eyes of a myriad of characters. Child's story unfolds in a straight-forward, chapter by chapter linear fashion full of building suspense.

I have not always enjoyed Jack Reacher as a character. He seems so unique as to be bizarre. He hitch-hikes his way across the American heartland without a suitcase or even backpack. Every three days or so, he buys a new set of clothes and discards those that are soiled. Cheaper he believes than paying the rent or mortgage on a house. But I have to admit, Reacher has grown on me.

In this story, Reacher, a discharged military policeman nursing a broken nose, is picked up on an interstate by a car with three occupants heading for Chicago. One is driving. Another tells stories that don't add up. A woman in the back seems worried. Something is not right. Like other stories Jack Reacher is heading to some unidentified rendezvous with someone—or perhaps he is not—perhaps he is just on the go.

And like the few other stories I have read in this series, the drama takes place in wide open spaces where towns are few. In this case, Nebraska and neighboring states.

The car and its occupants leave behind a man stabbed to death at an old pumping station. Within minutes the local sheriff, a good man, arrives. Soon the FBI in the person of Julia Sorenson, a 20 year veteran of the service, arrives. Her interaction later in the story with Jack Reacher proves quite interesting. As with others in this series one wonders if Reacher is averse to romance...with this one finally be his undoing or renewal. Other agencies also figure in the puzzling raises a myriad red herrings.

This was altogether a good read, although Reacher's prowess seemed a bit over the top. But I got a bit tired of the story at the end. However, I defy anyone to guess the ending.

The author, Lee Child, is an interesting character on his own. He is really Jim
Grant who was let go by a television channel in England in 1995. Since that event, he has remade him becoming an extremely successful writer of thrillers.
(less)

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Jan 07, 2013 Kathy Davie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: suspense

Seventeenth in the Jack Reacher suspense series. Reacher is thumbing a ride out of the disaster of Worth Dying For .

My Take
It's am improvement over 61 Hours and Worth Dying For , and yet it lacks the tension and depth of earlier Child-Reacher installments. It's a bit depressing as well when even Reacher starts referring to himself as "old". Sigh.

This was fun to read as Reacher figures out who these three people are in the car he's hitched a ride in. How he determines what's a lie and what's not...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

17th Jack Reacher book. Don't know how I missed this series. Excellent book. Quite far-fetched (so what else is new). Thrilling, fast-paced, keeps your interest.....

Four people in a car, hoping to make Chicago by morning. One man driving, eyes on the road. Another man next to him, telling stories that don’t add up. A woman in the back, silent and worried. And next to her, a huge man with a broken nose, hitching a ride east to Virginia.

An hour behind them, a man lies stabbed to death in an old pu...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-audio-books

get a bus or train from there. But something is wrong with the atmosphere in the car. The woman is too quiet. One of the two men in front is quite chatty but tells obvious lies that can be proved to be lies easily, such as the whopper that they’ve traveled without stopping for three hours already, which can’t be true as they have almost a full tank of gas. Then they start running into police blockades, and Reacher comes to the conclusion that he was picked up to help them get through the road bl...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Philtrum rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the 17th Jack Reacher book and the events take place in the current day. In fact, the events take place just after the 14th and 15th books (61 Hours and Worth Dying For), with the three forming a kind of trilogy, though each can be easily read in isolation.

(The 16th book – The Affair – is a prequel, detailing Reacher’s last case a military policeman before he left the Army in 1997)

Child sets up the story nicely with Reacher hitch-hiking and being picked up by two men and a woman in a car...more

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Dec 26, 2012 Mimmsan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reacher with a broken nose and duct tape for a bandaid. I am addicted to the series. However, the ending with... was quite over the top.
A lone rider goes too far. I like when he uses finess and his brain to help solve his situations, his fights are interesting but agaist 24 men is a little too much to believe. Still i am skipping the T Cruise movie since to me Reacher is as in the book a giant man- not shorter than me. i like TC in mission impossible, i am dissapointedm in the movie. I just rea...more

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Dec 22, 2012 Diana Hockley rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have loved Jack as a character from the first "Reacher" book I read, waiting impatiently for the next one. Unfortunately, I can't same the same for A Wanted Man.

I won't repeat the synopsis, everyone knows it.

The Cover:
Whoever chose the cover is a bit of a twit. Reacher is standing waiting for a lift, but the car heading toward him is approaching on the LEFT side of the road! When we were in the USA a few weeks ago, they were still driving on the right side.

The story:
I "got" the first bit, wher...more I have loved Jack as a character from the first "Reacher" book I read, waiting impatiently for the next one. Unfortunately, I can't same the same for A Wanted Man.

I won't repeat the synopsis, everyone knows it.

The Cover:
Whoever chose the cover is a bit of a twit. Reacher is standing waiting for a lift, but the car heading toward him is approaching on the LEFT side of the road! When we were in the USA a few weeks ago, they were still driving on the right side.

The story:
I "got" the first bit, where Reacher gets a ride in the car with the three people, but where the plot should escalate into full blown thriller mode, it remains flat and lifeless. Things go downhill from there. I feel there were way too many characters in this book, so many as to be utterly confusing. Law enforcement from all agencies charge into the fray until I don't know who is who or who is manipulating who. The sheriff is an unnecessary character along with plenty more.

The novel is full of details about what the characters were seeing, how they were dressed... it was very boring and long-winded, as though the author couldn't think of a decent twist to hold the plot together, so grabbed at straws.

The ending is a sorry mess. Reacher, single-handedly takes on a myriad of baddies and mows them down, and none of them manage to even touch him. I almost didn't finish this and that is a dreadful thing to have to admit about a Jack Reacher novel. Oh dear, Mr Child, please think about what you are doing to a beloved character, an icon of strength and justice, and one who thrilled your readers for many years.

Lastly - and this is nothing to do with this story of course - but One Shot, the book of which I loved, is spoiled for me. Tom Cruise has had a lot of bad press in recent times, he is the wrong age for a young Reacher and he is physically NOTHING like the character. So much so, that no long shots or close-ups is going to help the movie-goer to get over who is playing Reacher. Unfortunately, this image stayed with me while I was reading A Wanted Man and didn't help any.

***(less)

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Dec 18, 2012 Mysterious Ed rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: action, knight-errant, thriller

#17 in the Jack Reacher series. Reacher is an ex-Army CID MP Major and several of the books in the series are flashbacks to that time in his life. Now, he travels where he wants, has no fixed address or luggage and buys a new set of clothing every 3 days or so. When he stumbles across a situation that his experience says is wrong, he has the knight-errant urge to rectify it. One of his often mentioned characteristics is his large build and 6'5" height (It will be quite a feat for 5'7" Tom Cruise...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Ellen Keim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love reading about how Jack Reacher thinks through the dilemmas he gets into. Sometimes it seems that there is too much detail and repetition in the writing, but, uncharacteristically, I like it--in a Jack Reacher story. It's the writing--and Reacher's thought processes--that will be largely missing in the movie due to come out in a few days, which makes me wonder how in the world it will be able to capture the essence of the novel it's based on (One Shot).

While I don't think that this novel...more

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Nov 28, 2012 Abhishek rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jack Reacher. One foot ahead. Thumb stuck out. Toothbrush in his pocket. A set of clothes on his body. An old passport. Hitchhiking. A normal day. After waiting patiently for more than an hour, a car finally stops. Three passengers. Two guys in the front seat. A lady in the back. Decision time. Should we or should we not give a lift to this hulk of a guy with a broken nose? They did. And the adventure began!

A Wanted Man, the latest in the Reacher series, continues to navigate us through the tho...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Kat rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. tried to make it last, love the reacher books. it was kind of confusing, ok really confusing

he was hiching a ride, got picked up by 2 men, one woman. the woman was blinking a code with her eyes in the rear view mirror as he was driving. not as far fetched as i thought when she turned out to be fbi or cia, that was all too confusing

the 2 men had killed someone, kidnapped the waitress at a bar, only she was really fbi/cia which one of the 2 men knew

reacher of course figured out her code so he knew...more

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Nov 22, 2012 Terri Lynn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-suspense-thrillers, fiction

It only took me two days to read this book I received from a Goodreads giveaway. Actually, only 1 1/2 days. I had never read any book by Lee Child before but started with this 17th book about Jack Reacher.

Jack is a big hulking former military police with no driver's license and no ID except an old expired passport, a broken nose (from two books back, I understand from other reviews), and an attitude. We meet him on the side of the interstate in a hick state in the midwest hitchhiking. Most pe...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Kashmir White rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really did not want to read the reviews for this book. So I waited a long time before finally adding it to my "read" list and then looking to see how many stars it got. I was right to wait, because as I predicted the 3 star reviews are starting to get on my nerves. Maybe there's just no pleasing people anymore. I had the greatest time reading this book. 5 stars all the way from me. I didn't hate Worth Dying For, but I could understand why some readers didn't like it; it wasn't one of the best...more I really did not want to read the reviews for this book. So I waited a long time before finally adding it to my "read" list and then looking to see how many stars it got. I was right to wait, because as I predicted the 3 star reviews are starting to get on my nerves. Maybe there's just no pleasing people anymore. I had the greatest time reading this book. 5 stars all the way from me. I didn't hate Worth Dying For, but I could understand why some readers didn't like it; it wasn't one of the best Reacher books. But this one felt like it made up for that one and more. Even as a stand alone book this was great. The publisher description says, "no one is what they seem," and "readers will be gasping," etc. That's usually just bs, but in this case it's actually true. The plot is full of twists and turns -- no, really! -- and I actually did gasp, I think more than once. I laughed a lot, too. The great thing about Reacher is his ironic humor. People complain about numbers and statistics quotes. Part of the charm of the series is knowing how Reacher thinks, why he can pull off stuff that you or I can't. He's ex-military but his brain works just like it did when he was still in the army. If he didn't think like that people would complain about his super powers. I'm surprised but not surprised by the negative reviews. And disappointed in the 3 star reviews. A couple of these reviews referred to other people's reviews as a reason for their own 3 star reviews! Come on, people. This is fiction. It's a thriller. It's not the Bible. Can't a book just be fun to read? And that's not a concession to the negative reviews - not only is this book fun but it's written well, the plot is excellent, the characters are well-crafted yada yada yada. All that good critique of literature stuff. Bottom line, if you like the Reacher series, this one is excellent and you won't be disappointed. If you're new to Reacher, I recommend it. I think 61 Hours is my favorite Reacher novel, but this one is definitely in the top 5. (less)

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Nov 14, 2012 B.G.M. Hall rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Two things you need to know:
1. It's Reacher
2. It's good
(opps, I just repeated myself there).

Somehow, I came late to the world of Reacher, picking up The Killing Floor for a buck at a charity booksale because I kept hearing this Child guy mentioned in the same reviews as people like Michael Connelly and Meg Gardiner. Having enjoyed it, I started reading the whole series (which was at least a dozen books at that point) and discovered something I love about Child's writing: each book is a completel...more Two things you need to know:
1. It's Reacher
2. It's good
(opps, I just repeated myself there).

Somehow, I came late to the world of Reacher, picking up The Killing Floor for a buck at a charity booksale because I kept hearing this Child guy mentioned in the same reviews as people like Michael Connelly and Meg Gardiner. Having enjoyed it, I started reading the whole series (which was at least a dozen books at that point) and discovered something I love about Child's writing: each book is a completely different beast.

Some might say that's crap. In a one line description sense, each book is similar: Reacher, a hulk of a man [while I'll reserve judgment until I've seen the movie, I'm pretty sure he looks nothing like Tom Cruise!], travels to a new area, gets hooked into a crime and tries to do the right thing, discovers a conspiracy, ultimately getting on the wrong side of local law enforcement, kills a lot of people, then drifts off. But Child is great at taking that simple description and rearranging the elements: sometimes Reacher works with the local cops or feds, other times against; sometimes gets the girl, other times is rebuffed; sometimes the twist is the apparent good guy is bad, but Child doesn't do this enough to be predictable.

This book breaks the mold by giving us 100+ pages of Reacher, the huge man of action, sitting in a car seat.

Sometimes he's driving, other times a passenger; he gets out for coffee and gas a couple times, but goes right back in. 100 pages. And, despite a lot of reviewers hating this, I liked it, because it's a reminder that Reacher isn't just a random thug, he's also a thinker, who spends that 100 pages figuring out what's going on, why his companions are really doing what they're doing and who's telling lies (but not necessarily getting all of his deductions right).

There's also a nice touch where Child includes an incompetent cop named "Puller", which I took to be a dig at David Baldacci writing about a Reacher-clone with that name in Zero Day.

After he's out of the car, the story moves into more familiar Reacher territory, with plenty of twists to keep it interesting and the expected battle to finish it off (part of me was hoping Child would also do something new with the last 100 pages, but this still worked).

I didn't quite finish it in one day, but came close.(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Oct 24, 2012 Cindy Crawford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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About Lee Child

Lee Child was born in 1954 in Coventry, England, but spent his formative years in the nearby city of Birmingham. By coincidence he won a scholarship to the same high school that JRR Tolkien had attended. He went to law school in Sheffield, England, and after part-time work in the theater he joined Granada Television in Manchester for what turned out to be an eighteen-year career as a presentation...more

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