V.'s Reviews > Killing Floor

A fast fun read, pretty much what you'd expect. Jack Reacher is a classic good guy, always does the right thing and has the skills to do it. However, he's large, built and trained, so it's not like he's an underdog. Actually, he's more or less a superhero, always up to the task and never doubts himself. He's stronger, faster and always cool under pressure

This can get a bit tiresome, unless you're a 15 year old boy (physically or mentally) in which case it's awesome.

In terms of writing its fast (most of the time) and efficient prose, although there were a couple of off-putting elements for me.

First, it often got a bit mechanical as he just went from one place to another collecting information. The middle section especially was very: these people know something, let's go talk to them. Okay, they told us to speak to these other people, let's go there.

The opening, how he got embroiled in the story was very good, and the ending was good enough, but there was quite a lot of padding in the middle that required skimming.

The writing style in general is lean, but there were sections where he would go into heavy, detailed description that also warranted the skim. Going into minute detail about a gun or a jail cell or a car was very dull to read unless you happen to have a hard on for those things.

Action scenes were good; the one sex scene was cheesy.

Child also has the rather annoying habit of repeating information a number of times. Reacher will think some theory to himself, then he'll tell someone else about it, then the other person will repeat it back to him. I don't know if Child is worried the reader won't get it, or that they'll forget, or if he doesn't realise he's doing it, but it often made me think I'd lost my place and gone back a few pages.

That said, it's a reasonable read if you're okay with skimming and like unrealistically brilliant characters (which I am and do). It's also his first book and I'm curious if his writing improved in the rest of the series, so I'll probably pick up the next Reacher novel.