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240th out of 2,513 books
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Die Trying (Jack Reacher #2)
by
Lee Child
When a woman is kidnapped, Jack Reacher's in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's kidnapped with her. Now he has to save them both.
Paperback, 576 pages
Published
October 28th 2008
by Jove
(first published January 1st 1998)
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This was so much better than the first story. Well constructed, just the right side of believable and genuinely thrilling in places.
Reacher has moved onto Chicago and helps a lady on crutches struggle out with her dry cleaning when she is abducted, and he is taken along as well.
Not only is this lady an ex wall street broker, a member of the fbi but she is also the daughter of a high ranking military man and god daughter of the president. All this on top of the last adventur...more
Reacher has moved onto Chicago and helps a lady on crutches struggle out with her dry cleaning when she is abducted, and he is taken along as well.
Not only is this lady an ex wall street broker, a member of the fbi but she is also the daughter of a high ranking military man and god daughter of the president. All this on top of the last adventur...more
Fun, escapist entertainment, exciting adventure, mostly action and suspense. Rambo and Die Hard fans should like this.
STORY BRIEF:
A group of neo-Nazi militants in Montana plan to attack something in America. They kidnap Holly off the street in Chicago. Holly is an FBI agent. Jack happens to be walking by when the kidnapping occurs, and the bad guys take him as well. Holly and Jack are tied up in the back of a van and being transported to Montana.
Jack was a majo...more
STORY BRIEF:
A group of neo-Nazi militants in Montana plan to attack something in America. They kidnap Holly off the street in Chicago. Holly is an FBI agent. Jack happens to be walking by when the kidnapping occurs, and the bad guys take him as well. Holly and Jack are tied up in the back of a van and being transported to Montana.
Jack was a majo...more
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The Reacher books overuse the words "right" and "ok." Seriously, it is extremely annoying. Go get the notebook ok? He looks like he's mad right? Every other piece of dialogue has the words "right" or "ok." Other than that, these books are decent. Typical action based shoot em up style books. Reacher is a badass and doesn't follow whatever rules or laws you have in place to govern your society. He's a loner, and doesn't like to be in any place for more than...more
I just recently discovered this series and really enjoy it even though I've never been much of a mystery/thriller fan. Child is a master craftsman of plot and suspense and his writing throughout the entire series is taut and each title is a page-turner. Everything is plot-driven so they're usually an easy read. In fact, on more than one occasion I've gone through the novel in one sitting because of the suspense. With some in the series at 400+ pages this has made for some late nights. In th...more
This was so bad. I started out really enjoying this series, but I'm losing interest. It's disappointing.
The storyline was interesting with unique twists and turns but the minutiae was lame. Like having a love scene just after Holly & Reacher discover the dead body of the FBI spy who was discovered and was basically crucified by the 'bad guys'. It was tasteless and tacky. Plus, then when Holly is finally rescued from being kidnapped, instead of running to her Dad first she runs to ...more
The storyline was interesting with unique twists and turns but the minutiae was lame. Like having a love scene just after Holly & Reacher discover the dead body of the FBI spy who was discovered and was basically crucified by the 'bad guys'. It was tasteless and tacky. Plus, then when Holly is finally rescued from being kidnapped, instead of running to her Dad first she runs to ...more
Die Trying is the second novel in Lee Child's series featuring Jack Reacher, former member of the United States Army Special Forces and the most bad-ass wanderer and hero of present-day suspense novels.
Speak of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; Jack Reacher is wandering the streets of Chicago when his chivalry takes over to prevent a woman in crutches from falling down. Seconds later, Reacher and the woman are kidnapped at gunpoint and thrown in the trunk of a car. Reacher so...more
Speak of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; Jack Reacher is wandering the streets of Chicago when his chivalry takes over to prevent a woman in crutches from falling down. Seconds later, Reacher and the woman are kidnapped at gunpoint and thrown in the trunk of a car. Reacher so...more
Like many action novels one has to suspend belief so certain plot twists can occur. In the first Reacher novel there was the coincidence with his brother's investigation. That was ok for me. I enjoyed the story, the plot twists and discovering a new character that seemed to have interesting potential.
I wanted to like this novel and I'll probably give the third one a try but not for a while. There were too many incongruities for me. Bad guys who burn innocents in the trunks of cars and kill...more
I wanted to like this novel and I'll probably give the third one a try but not for a while. There were too many incongruities for me. Bad guys who burn innocents in the trunks of cars and kill...more
This is Book #2 in Child's Jack Reacher series. I read the first one, "Killing Floor" earlier this year. This time Reacher is abducted by accident when he tries to help a woman when she trips coming out of a dry cleaning establishment. It turns out her father is the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Holly Johnson is going to become the pawn of a militia group determined to overthrow the U.S. Government by force and violence.
It's a good story, but the first third to ha...more
It's a good story, but the first third to ha...more
Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is back in Lee Child’s second instalment “Die Trying”. Following on from his first novel and critically acclaimed “Killing Floor” Child is not only back on form but is better than ever!
In the “Killing Floor”, Jack Reacher stumbles upon a web of corruption, murder and money laundering. Unable to escape due to corruption at the highest level of the local police Reacher is hell-bent on proving his innocence and bringing those guilty to his own unique lev...more
In the “Killing Floor”, Jack Reacher stumbles upon a web of corruption, murder and money laundering. Unable to escape due to corruption at the highest level of the local police Reacher is hell-bent on proving his innocence and bringing those guilty to his own unique lev...more
Book 2 was not as riveting as book 1 in the Jack Reacher series, but still good. Technical information about the firearms used by militia had me yawning at times, he is very thorough in his description about how and why a bullet travels as fast as it does and the mathematical equations of the aim, etc., but overall I enjoyed the read, yet preferred the action of book 1 more.
This revolves around the kidnapping of a female FBI agent with a knee injury. She is also the daughter of a ...more
This revolves around the kidnapping of a female FBI agent with a knee injury. She is also the daughter of a ...more
2nd complicated Jack Reacher thriller is a pleaser !
We were hardly the first to become enamored with Lee Child's new thriller hero Jack Reacher, an ex-military police investigator extraordinaire who beat all odds in his debut in "Killing Floor". He's back in his sophomore outing, and every bit as tough, smart, and determined to save the day as before. This time he's just being a Good Samaritan to an injured woman struggling with her dry cleaning when the two of them are cap...more
We were hardly the first to become enamored with Lee Child's new thriller hero Jack Reacher, an ex-military police investigator extraordinaire who beat all odds in his debut in "Killing Floor". He's back in his sophomore outing, and every bit as tough, smart, and determined to save the day as before. This time he's just being a Good Samaritan to an injured woman struggling with her dry cleaning when the two of them are cap...more
The second Reacher novel, taking place a year or so after the first. While helping a lady on crutches pick up her dropped dry-cleaning from the street, he becomes her co-abductee-at- gunpoint. In this one, Child trades the first-person narrative of Killing Floor for third person omniscient, and plays around skillfully with the suspense-building techniques this switch allows.
AHHHHH this book made me become so enamored of the series that my heart starts beating faster when I passed ...more
AHHHHH this book made me become so enamored of the series that my heart starts beating faster when I passed ...more
Lee Child- Die Trying (Jove 2005) 4 Stars
Jack Reacher stops to help a lady and finds himself kidnapped along with the woman. Handcuffed in the back of a truck, he finds himself taken across the States. When he finally finds out what the ransom is he cannot believe what he hears. He knows that he must get both the woman and him out before it is too late, even if it means his death.
This book was fairy fast–paced and action-filled. I enjoyed reading it. The plot was great, a...more
Jack Reacher stops to help a lady and finds himself kidnapped along with the woman. Handcuffed in the back of a truck, he finds himself taken across the States. When he finally finds out what the ransom is he cannot believe what he hears. He knows that he must get both the woman and him out before it is too late, even if it means his death.
This book was fairy fast–paced and action-filled. I enjoyed reading it. The plot was great, a...more
This was a fantastic book but I must be honest to a certain extent. I'll do my best to describe this without spoiling it. So at the halfway point if not a little be passed it I would have bet a million that it would end up a Waco/standoff/cult like 2nd half. 1. I was wrong. 2. I thought it might have been jazzed up by having you know who go Rambo, not needed and not the case 3. I was way wrong.
At about the 60% complete range it started to get predictable, I was a solid 3 star's at tha...more
At about the 60% complete range it started to get predictable, I was a solid 3 star's at tha...more
Jack Reacher is the ultimate badass loner. A legend in the Army's Military Police, Reacher mustered out after 14 heroic years, and now wanders the U.S., staying as anonymous as possible.
In the first Reacher novel, "Killing Floor," Jack wandered into a small Georgia town that just happened to be the site of his estranged brother's murder.
In "Die Trying," Reacher is in Chicago. He helps a struggling lady with her dry cleaning, then POUF! He and the m...more
In the first Reacher novel, "Killing Floor," Jack wandered into a small Georgia town that just happened to be the site of his estranged brother's murder.
In "Die Trying," Reacher is in Chicago. He helps a struggling lady with her dry cleaning, then POUF! He and the m...more
I am currently reading book 11-- Bad Luck and Trouble. And I'll tell you what, I have read 10 of Child's Reacher novels because of the way he writes Reacher and Reacher's surroundings.
Reacher is part Sherlock Holmes part Jason Bourne. The way child works us through Reacher's investigative mind is very similar to Doyle. I just happen to have been reading a Holmes' anthology at time these books were suggested to me. The only difference is that Reacher does not know the solution before...more
Reacher is part Sherlock Holmes part Jason Bourne. The way child works us through Reacher's investigative mind is very similar to Doyle. I just happen to have been reading a Holmes' anthology at time these books were suggested to me. The only difference is that Reacher does not know the solution before...more
Michael
rated it
Reacher helps a woman with a cane who is struggling with her dry cleaning. Three men approach them and abduct the woman, they aren't sure what Reacher is doing there so they take him also. They bring their prisoner's to their hidaway in Montana where they plan on using the woman, FBI agent Holly Johnson as a bargaining chip for their plan.
Reacher shows the reader his many talents in this the second installment of his stories. We see him as the lone man against insurmountable odds. ...more
Reacher shows the reader his many talents in this the second installment of his stories. We see him as the lone man against insurmountable odds. ...more
The second book in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. Reacher is inadvertently dragged into the kidnapping of an FBI agent who turns out to be the daughter of the Secretary of Defense when the two of them are grabbed off the streets of Chicago and forced into a car. They end up in the custody of an extremist right wing group seeking to secede from the Union.
The action is good, and kept me turning the pages. The characters are OK, but Reacher's behavior is frequently incompatible w...more
The action is good, and kept me turning the pages. The characters are OK, but Reacher's behavior is frequently incompatible w...more
Die Trying is the 2nd book in the Jack Reacher series. In this novel, Reacher is at the wrong place at the wrong time and stumbles into a kidnapping. Taken along with the real target, FBI agent Holly Johnson, Reacher is forced into a stolen van where he and Johnson are taken on a cross-country jaunt that ends in the rugged mountains of Montana. There he meets the leader of an anti-government militia whose goal is to establish a new, independent country. Carved out of the harsh, Montana wilde...more
I guess I have read too many thrillers because the ones I read now just don't seem to thrill me at all. This is the second book in the popular Reacher series featuring modern-day knight-errant Jack Reacher.
Reacher is an interesting and original character. A West Point alum and former Army MP who has basically dropped out of his previous life to just wander, footloose and fancy free, across the United States. Of course in the course of his wanderings he gets involved in different advent...more
Reacher is an interesting and original character. A West Point alum and former Army MP who has basically dropped out of his previous life to just wander, footloose and fancy free, across the United States. Of course in the course of his wanderings he gets involved in different advent...more
This is the second in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child and the second in the series I've read. (Not always easy to read a series in order when the community library is where one gets the books.) After having some problems with the first one I read -- "Echo Burning" -- this one seemed to be a little easier to get into allowing for the fact that things of a violent nature -- like being kidnapped off the streets of Chicago with a female FBI agent -- just happen to Jack Reacher. Where ...more
Okay-- I am really enjoying this series of books.. Jack Reacher is an enigmatic, tough, and veangeful foe.
In this episode, Reacher is in the wrong place at the wrong time (lucky for the reader or we wouldn't have much of a story) and winds up getting kidnapped and handcuffed next to a cute female FBI agent with a bum knee. Child has to decide what he is going to do about the whole situation. Meanwhile, Child weaves an interesting mystery/thriller about a plot against the United ...more
In this episode, Reacher is in the wrong place at the wrong time (lucky for the reader or we wouldn't have much of a story) and winds up getting kidnapped and handcuffed next to a cute female FBI agent with a bum knee. Child has to decide what he is going to do about the whole situation. Meanwhile, Child weaves an interesting mystery/thriller about a plot against the United ...more
I enjoyed Die Trying, Lee Child's second Jack Reacher novel, a lot more than his first, Killing Floor. The switch from first-person narration to third-person narration helped a lot. The bigger, tougher, and more taciturn a character is, the more important it is not to have him narrate his own story. (Can you imagine The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly with constant voice-over narration by Clint Eastwood explaining what his character is thinking and feeling?)
In this novel, Reacher is stil...more
In this novel, Reacher is stil...more
I read the first Jack Reacher yarn and was somewhat lukewarm about it. Decided to try this second novel and see if it was better and would open the door to a new series. But I'm still ambivalent.
Maybe the issue is with the plots. In both books, the initial premise is intriguing and my curiosity is whetted. But then the plot stumbles and incongruities mount up. In this story, the bad guys keep Reacher alive with only the flimsiest rationale. Maybe it's lack of character development. ...more
Maybe the issue is with the plots. In both books, the initial premise is intriguing and my curiosity is whetted. But then the plot stumbles and incongruities mount up. In this story, the bad guys keep Reacher alive with only the flimsiest rationale. Maybe it's lack of character development. ...more
I'm a big fan of Jack Reacher but the last two books left me feeling the excitement was waning and becoming stale. So I reached way back for some of the early Reacher I had somehow missed and came up with this, the second in the series.
It was not my imagination. The early Reacher had what I was missing. Jack finds himself involved in a kidnapping while walking down the street and stopping to help a woman on a crutch pick up her dry cleaning. Isn't this always how our hero usually finds hims...more
It was not my imagination. The early Reacher had what I was missing. Jack finds himself involved in a kidnapping while walking down the street and stopping to help a woman on a crutch pick up her dry cleaning. Isn't this always how our hero usually finds hims...more
Another excellent, tight, fast-moving adventure-action story by Lee Childs. It starts with Jack Reacher being in the wrong place and the wrong time resulting in getting swept up with a woman in a kidnapping. Reacher could have escaped numerous times (of course) but he keeps figuring all the angles to be sure the least amount of collateral damage takes place. Then he gets in deeper and deeper and it starts being personal. Why was this particular woman kidnapped?--she's a FBI agent working out of ...more
Eerie comes to mind! Yet not as good as the first one. Unfortunately not.
So, there's Jack Reacher, he's at the wrong place, wrong time - kidnapped with the handicapped woman (Holly) he helped carrying dry cleaned clothes. By some militia group as it turns out and they take them to some remote spot in the Montana forests. And then ... it gets complicated and weird and Child lost me.
Still interesting, but I had to put the book aside waaay to often, b...more
I'll admit this is the only Reacher novel I have read, and will be my last. Unless something transcendental has happened to Lee Child, I don't see how his writing style or story telling ability could really get me interested enough to pick another Reacher novel up.
The list of distractions is tremendous, so I'll just "shrug" it off (yes, there is a lot of shrugging going on). I suppose if you just want to occupy yourself and have the ability to skim a good third of a book i...more
The list of distractions is tremendous, so I'll just "shrug" it off (yes, there is a lot of shrugging going on). I suppose if you just want to occupy yourself and have the ability to skim a good third of a book i...more
Though I do not like the style of this book (please leave crucified good guys and hand saws away from my novels) this was a very well written and well-developed novel. The characters are strong and memorable and the story itself was thrilling. Jack Reacher is a great hero -- one with whom men can be impressed and women can admire. He is intelligent, strong, and at the start of this novel -- in the wrong place at the wrong time. As he was walking down the street, a woman stumbles...more
While I found this book entertaining, I remember now why I hadn't picked it up sooner -- because I read the first book in the series and didn't care for it much. I find the writing style annoying. The choppy sentence fragments are bad enough. The long strings of descriptive synonyms just about drove me spare. In an industry which pays by the word, I can't believe some editor did not put her foot down and cut out some of those redundant descriptors. The characters also all seem mildly retard...more
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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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“he was keeping track of time. It was nearly two hours since he had last looked at his watch, but he knew what time it was to within about twenty seconds. It was an old skill, born of many long wakeful nights on active service. When you're waiting for something to happen, you close your body down like a beach house in winter and you let your mind lock onto the steady pace of the passing seconds. It's like suspended animation. It saves energy and it lifts the responsibility for your heartbeat away from your unconscious brain and passes it on to some kind of a hidden clock. Makes a huge black space for thinking in. But it keeps you just awake enough to be reach for whatever you need to be ready for. And it means you always know what time it is.”
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10 people liked it
“People, Reacher was certain about. Dogs were different. People had freedom of choice. If a man or a woman ran snarling toward him, they did so because they chose to. They were asking for whatever they got. His response was their problem. But dogs were different. No free will. Easily misled. It raised an ethical problem. Shooting a dog because it had been induced to do something unwise was not the sort of thing Reacher wanted to do.”
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7 people liked it
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