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Adam's Reviews > Tripwire
Tripwire (Jack Reacher, #3)
by Lee Child
by Lee Child
Adam's review
bookshelves: action-adventure, crime-fiction, fiction, military-fiction, mystery
Jun 19, 10
bookshelves: action-adventure, crime-fiction, fiction, military-fiction, mystery
Read from May 26 to June 19, 2010
This isn't a review, because I just started reading this book, but I couldn't help sharing my irritation.
I like Lee Child's storytelling skills, and Jack Reacher is a fun character to read about.
Unfortunately, his prose is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Most irritating of all, it's not irredeemably bad, it just needs a good editor. Who is Lee Child's editor? Does he even have one?
For instance:
"Are you Jack Reacher?" the guy asked for the third time.
Reacher set his bottle on the table and shook his head.
"No," he lied.
We, the readers, are fully aware this man is Reacher, because we've been told so at least a dozen times in the past three pages. "He lied" is unnecessary and stupid. It would have had more impact had Child simply written "No," he said."
"Who wants him?" Reacher asked.
"My client," Costello said. "Lady called Mrs. Jacob."
Reacher sipped water. The name meant nothing to him. Jacob? Never heard of any such person.
The line "Jacob? Never heard of any such person," should be deleted from the page, burned, and flushed down the toilet.
A few pages later, Reacher enjoys a "steak that hung off both sides of the plate at once."
Is there any way for a steak to hang off both sides of a plate not at once? Are these two, irritating little words there to ensure we know that this isn't one of those steaks that hangs off both sides of the plate, but not at the same time, because it has legs and walks back and forth?
I could go on and on, but I won't. Tough guy characters need tough-guy prose. To properly craft terse, tough-guy prose, Child needs a good editor. He doesn't have one.
--update--
OK, I finished. Of the first three novels about Jack Reacher, this was far and away my least favorite. Besides the poorly edited, hackneyed prose, the story takes forever to get going. The first two Reacher books both have slam-bang openings that carry the reader through some of the more boring bits, but this one doesn't, which makes all the repeated verbs and interminably long descriptions of people doing things harder to get through. The first 200 pages could have been edited down to 75, and pages 200-400 could have been edited down to 100. The climactic 150 pages are pretty good, but it takes too long to get there. The first two Reacher books weren't great, but they weren't boring. Unfortunately this one is. It could have been a tight 325-page thriller, but it's a bloated 550-page snoozer. Comparisons to Hammett and Chandler are way off. If anything, Lee Child is a higher quality Don Pendleton.
I like Lee Child's storytelling skills, and Jack Reacher is a fun character to read about.
Unfortunately, his prose is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Most irritating of all, it's not irredeemably bad, it just needs a good editor. Who is Lee Child's editor? Does he even have one?
For instance:
"Are you Jack Reacher?" the guy asked for the third time.
Reacher set his bottle on the table and shook his head.
"No," he lied.
We, the readers, are fully aware this man is Reacher, because we've been told so at least a dozen times in the past three pages. "He lied" is unnecessary and stupid. It would have had more impact had Child simply written "No," he said."
"Who wants him?" Reacher asked.
"My client," Costello said. "Lady called Mrs. Jacob."
Reacher sipped water. The name meant nothing to him. Jacob? Never heard of any such person.
The line "Jacob? Never heard of any such person," should be deleted from the page, burned, and flushed down the toilet.
A few pages later, Reacher enjoys a "steak that hung off both sides of the plate at once."
Is there any way for a steak to hang off both sides of a plate not at once? Are these two, irritating little words there to ensure we know that this isn't one of those steaks that hangs off both sides of the plate, but not at the same time, because it has legs and walks back and forth?
I could go on and on, but I won't. Tough guy characters need tough-guy prose. To properly craft terse, tough-guy prose, Child needs a good editor. He doesn't have one.
--update--
OK, I finished. Of the first three novels about Jack Reacher, this was far and away my least favorite. Besides the poorly edited, hackneyed prose, the story takes forever to get going. The first two Reacher books both have slam-bang openings that carry the reader through some of the more boring bits, but this one doesn't, which makes all the repeated verbs and interminably long descriptions of people doing things harder to get through. The first 200 pages could have been edited down to 75, and pages 200-400 could have been edited down to 100. The climactic 150 pages are pretty good, but it takes too long to get there. The first two Reacher books weren't great, but they weren't boring. Unfortunately this one is. It could have been a tight 325-page thriller, but it's a bloated 550-page snoozer. Comparisons to Hammett and Chandler are way off. If anything, Lee Child is a higher quality Don Pendleton.
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rated it 4 stars
Jun 16, 2010 04:37am
I thoroughly enjoyed the audio version. Maybe, it wasn't meant to be read?
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If it wasn't meant to be read, then Child should have produced it as a radio show.Prose matters a lot to me, and Child really rubs me the wrong way. He has so many bad habits. A verb will be used to describe an action, like "blipping" the selector into Drive, and then a paragraph or two later, a character will say, "We're really blipping through the gas in this big SUV." Or he'll use the same verb over and over again until it really stands out. For instance, four different character will "thread around" the furniture in a room, and the "thread around" it when they leave. Also, in this and the second Reacher book, every character "shrugs" constantly, even if it's followed by a line of dialogue that doesn't make sense with someone shrugging.
Ultimately, though, I blame his editor, whoever he or she was (or is).
All that aside, I thought the story was OK, but it took 200 pages to get going (the first two Reacher novels really started with a bang), and the romance in this book was thoroughly unconvincing; all telling, no showing. And Reacher himself was inconsistent. Are we supposed to believe that a man who was in the service for so many years can't take a shower in less than 11 minutes, and might take 30+ minutes if he showers, shaves, and then showers again? Who does that? Also, what kind of drifter buys clothes at the GAP and then throws them away? Ridiculous.
This is one of the reasons i stopped reading Reacher,Lee Child after this third book. I enjoyed the first book but the other two was ruined by stupid plot,story,overly macho hero.
There was an article in Esquire a month or two ago that claimed Jack Reacher is the heir to Philip Marlowe and The Continental Op, but I don't see it. Child doesn't come close to Chandler's prose or Hammett's prose.I think he's more like an heir to John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee, or even Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan, in terms of both character development and writing skills. In other words, he's fun to read about, but isn't that believable or deep.
Haha The OP ? Marlowe ? Those are great PI characters. Jack Reacher is a Rambo clichè. Its a crime comparing Hammett to Lee Child in any single way.....No character is great on his own it depends on the character.
When i want Jack Reacher type character i read better authors in similar genre like John Rain series by Barry Eisler,Bond,Bourne type characters.
I habitually edit non-fiction as I read it - or read aloud - a form of entertaining ones self, I suppose. I don't do it so much with fiction.
I have just started Tripwire, and have not read the first two Reacher novels. I *have* read all of the latter half of Child's output (up to "61 Hours").
The reviewer has commendably offered good examples of editing miscues, and I notice them too.
I often find Child's description of setting to be excessive. When I encounter these, I skim - move on to the good stuff.
By good stuff, I mean the detective work, the plotting (Child seems not to have a "formula"), the fights, the morals (Reacher has a interesting morality) - none of which by the way is Rambo-esqe - a seriously inapt comparision.
I must say, however, that the later novels have the same "problems" to which the reviewer objects, so I won't recommend that he try those. However, for others, I suggest that style is a tricky thing, and your mileage may vary.
"Are you Jack Reacher?" the guy asked for the third time.Reacher set his bottle on the table and shook his head.
"No," he lied.
==> I think you're overreacted. Lee Child said "he lied" to emphasized the truth that Reacher did lie, and that Reacher himself did this purposely for the sake of lying. And later, his lie here will develop into a certain plot that cost AT LEAST two people's lives. So he had lied, he damn sure knew he lied.
"Jacob? Never heard of any such person." emphasized on how the message didn't affect him AT ALL because he thinks it's not his problem because he doesn't know this Jacob person. It adds on his character and Lee Child let the readers taste a little of Reacher's subconscious mind responded to the message.
"steak that hung off both sides of the plate at once."
You're definitely being overreacted here... I live in a third world country and I NEVER ate any steak that hangs in any of the plate side, let alone both of the plate sides. So Lee Child's hyperbolic expression gave me a very good picture about how large the steak is.
I really can't find any problem with any of the expressions you've been complaining about... but probably that's because I'm not a native English speaker, but I understand and I can SEE why Lee Child used those expression.
I feel as if I'm being confronted in a dream state by the living embodiment of Lee Child's prose, justifying its own existence.
Adam wrote: "I feel as if I'm being confronted in a dream state by the living embodiment of Lee Child's prose, justifying its own existence."*scratch head* I don't understand...
I Agree with your assessment. The prose steers towards the dime store detective category of pulp fiction. Not boring but not great, as you put it, is absolutely accurate. For me, the (predictable) big reveal is also no longer forgivable as a plot device.
I think your review is overly harsh. While there are certainly some flaws in the prose, it's not enough to completely ruin the story except for the most persnickety of readers.
Rachel, I am an editor. How did you guess? :-)Charity, there are flaws in the prose of every Lee Child novel, but some are enjoyable despite that. This wasn't one of those for me. Also, the prose in this was terrible, even by the standard of Jack Reacher novels (see my comment about "blipping" in the comments section above). You can call it "persnickety," but I'll call it "discriminating." (Also, if you read my entire review, including the last paragraph, you'll see that the prose was not my only issue with this book.)
The writing style of a novel is important to me ... and I don't think I'm the only one. Reading a novel with prose this bad is like going to see a potentially interesting movie that's projected out of focus.
Think about popular writers who have stood the test of time, like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Does anyone say, "I only read them for the plot ... it doesn't matter that their writing is cloddish"?
Michael, I agree about the "big reveal." Whether or not it was predictable, what did it add to the story?
Good review, Adam. It was a relief to see that someone else shared many of my thoughts. The prose is some of the clumsiest I've read, and is largely irrelevant. Perhaps Child was mainly concerned with making the book long enough for it to seem substantial, so had to fill it with reams of prosaic rubbish? I remember one line where a character was described as 'nodding quietly'. I mean, come on!
Adam, As an editor I imagine you have some insight into why Child's prose is allowed to be so windy.
My guess is that Child is similar to a guy who used to sell Electrolux working from a shop where I worked one summer. He would bring in steady sales - he always sold a twin - and outsold everyone in the shop. The boss did not "teach" him anything - said he was afraid to mess with success.
Child sells and sells - the publisher does not want to change a thing. Maybe Child is difficult - does not like to rewrite - will take his football and go home?
I found Tripwire to be pretty entertaining - the plot nice and twisty - with some mystery elements. Note I didn't say it was a mystery - I don't have much experience with mysteries and seldom try to solve them. I also liked the internal conflict Reacher had at the end with domesticity and being romantically tied down.
It is pretty obvious that Child (like Tolkien in LOTR and Neal Stephenson in Cryptonomicon) could use an editor or could tighten his own prose. But for me that windy prose is a small set of speed bumps - all the other stuff keeps me coming back.
Hi Jim,I've read a couple of interviews with Child and he doesn't seem like a difficult person who doesn't like to rewrite (and he doesn't seem like Stephen King, who seems to respect editors line-by-line but never wants to cut anything out of his enormous manuscripts).
In fact, once an interviewer said that they'd heard that he was a dream for publishers, since his manuscripts arrived pretty much ready for publication, and Child said, "Yeah, they never really do much to them."
So it doesn't seem as if he's difficult, more that his publishers have an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude.
On the other hand, for one of his later books, 61 Hours, I noticed that he dedicated the book to his editor, and I also noticed that many of the irritating repetitions and poor line choices weren't present anymore. I still thought the book was too long, but that's another story...
And I should reiterate that I like Child's books a lot. I don't think that he's a master thriller writer like Stephen Hunter, but he crafts very entertaining narratives. Part of the reason I focused on the writing in his early novels is that there's so much good there, but they seem one or two drafts away from a really polished rip-roaring thriller.
As a relatively new fiction writer, I like the quick pace of the Jack Reacher series. Child brings you in fast and gets you on the edge of your seat. He gives you enough description to paint the scene, but not too much to slow it down. He does have a few annoying habits, but overall I find his books hard to put down. I usually listen to the audio versions, and Dick Hill does a masterful job with the dialog.I agree that a good editor would tighten things up, but overall they work for me. Novels from authors like Clive Cussler who add enormous detail usually stop me cold. I find myself putting the book down midway. Bottom line, I've finished every Lee Child book I've started.
Interesting observations. I thought the prose of the first book was choppy and the writing amateurish, but many first books require grace from a reader. I thought this one started well. I liked the prologue and appreciate the voice change. I just started reading it. I usually give a writer two or three tries before I decide whether or not to continue.
I really enjoyed your review. And this thread, too, by the way. I am rarely bothered by editing problems since I listen to Reacher books on audiobook. They don't show up as glaringly in a vocal presentation, perhaps. What irritated me most about these books is Reacher's total lack of a sense of humor or self-deprecation. I see him as a total social retard in a lot of ways.Plus, the only time he is ever proven wrong is when he mistakenly thinks he has been proven wrong about something. Because later it ALWAYS turns out he was right, to begin with.
Anyway, with that said, I love most of Child's books, and enjoy when Reacher kicks ass and analyzes tricky situations. Guilty pleasure, I guess.
Matthuvius, I agree with you about Reacher's lack of a sense of humor. It's interesting, because it's hard to tell how much of it is intentional. It works for the character, though, since he's a drifter who seems to have little desire to interact with other human beings most of the time.I just saw the movie Jack Reacher last night. Tom Cruise doesn't fit the character physically, but I have to say that he and the writer/director did a good job of capturing the character ... capable of handling any situation to a ridiculous degree, and a total prick with no time to waste on fools and glad-handers.
Adam, Would you recommend some Stephen Hunter thrillers?
(for me, who has read all but the latest Reacher)
His latest "The Third Bullet: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel" weaves a tale around the JFK shooting - it got mixed reviews at Amazon.
Sure, Jim. No problem. I haven't read any of Stephen Hunter's more recent novels, but I've enjoyed pretty much everything I've read by him so far.The first Bob Lee Swagger novel, Point of Impact, is good.
Dirty White Boys is a good crime thriller. More grimy and violent than most of his other thrillers.
And I thought The Second Saladin was an excellent CIA thriller.
The Master Sniper is good, especially if you like fiction about WWII.
Great Adam, All four on their way. Amazing the deals Amazon has made with used book sellers - three of these will arrive for less than the usual four bucks - along with some others that have been "on deck" as it were.
The book subversion continues. I like Barnes and Noble for magazines, pastry, and coffee.
Amazon gets my book business.
Last night I sent another K**dle home with a friend to give to her 70-odd yr-old mother. Loaded with books of course (mostly public domain) and a brief primer on how to operate the reader.
I did a similar thing with mother-in-law about two years ago. She has been very happy with hers.
Thanks again.
