Jack Reacher Series discussion
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The ending of 61 Hours
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Bru
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Jun 19, 2010 08:51AM
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On Lee Child's website they just come right out and tell you that he survived, so it must not be a secret, you can't have a "Reacher novel" without Jack Reacher.
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I felt Lee Child was challenging us to figure it out so I was trying to solve the mystery. It certainly was a very odd way to end a book and leave the reader hanging.
Maybe Jack was sustained by a "meth" high. By the way where did the third flare go.
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Do you also see the character changing in personalty in the last two books?
We know for sure he survived so why cant he just tell us in this book? I find it sooo hard to believe he could survive when it was so hot and melted the snow for 2.5 miles around it? How could this be? Was the girl sitting on the bed in the hut Hollands daughter?
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On surviving the fire, that's what I was thinking. Instead of taking it for granted that Reacher would be back in the next book I wanted to unravel the clues Lee Child left us. All I can come up with is the 3-4 hours of escape time before the final explosion. It will be interesting to see if the author explains this ending in the next book or just ignores it.
He has to explain it!! I wish he had explained a bit more bout the daughter, I got that that was her, but Plato said she was with that bunch by choice, so why couldnt he have just gone over there and wisked her away if she wasnt a prisoner?
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I was thinking the deputy's wife might be involved - she was so shady.
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Didn't Reacher survive a close-range shot to the chest with a .38 in the novel that took place in the World Trade Center? He might have lived through the blast as a lesser man (and they're ALL lesser men) would have succumbed.
True...they are all lesser men...he has taken quite a few bullets and lived to tell about it, not to mention all the hand to hand combat he has successfully dealt with...
I just re-read the ending... too horrified by the apparent finality of the heat & explosion.
Here's what I extracted-- the cold air rushed DOWN the staircase and the heat from the explosion poured out of the two ventilation shafts. After 3 hours, the jet fuel exploded.
Here's what I extracted-- the cold air rushed DOWN the staircase and the heat from the explosion poured out of the two ventilation shafts. After 3 hours, the jet fuel exploded.
I think I remember reading something about the structure at the top of the stairwell remaining completely intact, being that it was built as a post apocalyptic shelter, it was constructed to withstand a nuclear bomb. Also, he went on and on about the thickness of the concrete, how they had money and supplies to burn back then, etc. Reacher was (smart and) probably a little lucky and he ended up being in the right place at the right time and was inside the structure at the time of explosion and therefore protected by the structure.
Lisa, I really like your thinking. I got as far as Reacher making it to the top of the stairs, since the stairwell was acting as a cold-air intake. But I couldn't figure out where he went from there.But your theory raises a new question: since the site was too hot to approach for several days, and since it was encircled by a lot of Feds, how did Reacher escape the cordon undetected?
I was thinking another way on this. And this idea might make me sound like I don't respect the Jack Reacher novels. But I do, this was the second of Lee's books that I've read and thought they were both awesome! Is it possible that the life of Reacher is not continuing on from book to book..and instead that he's a character we've come to meet from various different stories, reflecting various lives of Jack Reacher. Soo...long story short, he did end up dying in the flames in South Dakota (because they also burned a 2.5 mile radius around him, and he only had 10 or 15 seconds to get up the 280 spiral stairs). In this story Jack Reacher lost his life, but in the next few novels he'll always come on top?
Hey Rob,Though your idea is intriguing but in the next book " Worth Dying For", Jack nearly tells the doctor about his adventure in south dakota and he is shown as an injured man so for Reacher... It goes on.
Ah jeez haha. Guess I should read a few more of the books before getting so philosophical. Thanks Amal.
I think I figured almost everything out.1. He caught the flare thrown by Plato's men as he was climbing the stairs.
2. He drove the fuel truck after Plato's men and took them out a few miles away. Note the fuel truck was not found.
3. He returned to the runway and took another flare. Note only two of the four road flares were found.
4. He threw the flare down the hole.
I just don't understand how he threw the flare without getting roasted. Perhaps he sheltered outside the building and it protected him from the blast.
spoilers ahead...
...
It was explained that when the flare ignited the jet fuel, one of the two vents acted as a suction for air that fueled the flame shooting skyward - out from the other air vent, so the staircase was also suctioning air down at hurricane force speed, thus at the beginning of Worth Dying For, he had upper body / shoulder injuries which was diagnosed by the doctor as indicative of being in a hurricane and overextending both of his arms, thus the upper body injuries from pulling himself up and out.
Lee Child on Ending a Story but Not a CharacterAlmost everyone has referred to the ending of my last book 61 Hours as a cliffhanger, and it's true that Reacher's ultimate fate wasn't fully articulated ... but I never thought of it as a cliffhanger as such. In my mind the ending was the product of two different desires ... firstly, to trust the reader more; and secondly, not to feel trapped into writing the same formula every time.
When I worked in television, we gradually learned that our product was being consumed in a certain new way: unlike way back in the past, people no longer sat with rapt attention and concentrated solely on the screen. Instead, they kept half an eye on the show, while simultaneously cooking dinner and talking to their mothers on the phone. So, when an important plot point was coming up, we unconsciously developed a technique: tell them you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them you've told them.
I think I carried that unconscious technique into my books a little, and over the years I began to feel it was unnecessary. Book readers are probably smarter on average than TV watchers, but more importantly, even though reading can be fragmented in terms of time--ten minutes here, twenty minutes there--people are either reading or not reading, and when they're reading, they're paying attention. So what I try to do now is supply all the necessary information--all the clues, all the background--and let the reader work out the conclusion. In other words, I ask "Two plus two?" And instead of either me or Reacher promptly answering, "Four," I let the reader figure it out.
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I went back and reread the ending because I did not want Reacher to die ( he is virtually indestructible). He was able to escape the stairwell and either close the blast door and exit later or he left during the four hour roman candle. He would have had to steal some cold weather gear to make his getaway and he could have used the fuel truck. I liked the other members comment about getting Plato's associates then driving on. I did not think of that though I did wonder about the fuel truck. My first worry was the surviving the brutal weather.
I made the mistake of reading a couple of the books out of order so not finding out how Reacher gets arm injuries had bugged me. What we know is that at the end of 61 Hours he is hundreds of feet below ground in a structure filling with aviation fuel and a lit flare on its way down. The delivery method for the fuel was a truck which had a long hose attached, the end of which is at the bottom of the stairs spewing fuel and the truck about to drive away. The only way Reacher can make it up the stairs fast enough with his huge feet is to grab the fuel hose as the truck drives off and get yanked all the way to the top in seconds. This accounts for his survival and arm injuries and leads us to connect the missing truck with Reacher's escape somehow, possibly his way out of Bolton.
I've read most of the back catalogue for Reacher stories and '61 Hours' is the closest I've been to putting one down due to an absence of credibility and too much transparency in the plot. I decided to stick with it and ended up very disappointed. When I got to the end I felt cheated. I have given up on other authors (no names mentioned here) who 'play games' with endings to encourage sales of their next book. A poorly researched story, a more linear plot than usual, and an ending that is far below what Child is capable of as an author. I will be more careful when picking up another Lee Child in case it's as poor as this one.
There was never any explosion to begin with. The hole was stated to be 210 feet deep, and the kerosene fuel was stored in a tank on the bottom while the pump truck was at the top. Given ambient air pressure and the density of kerosene, a pump positioned at the top could only pump kerosene up from about 42 feet below it before a vacuum would form in the hose. Logically, therefore, the jet fuel was never pumped out of the tank in the first place, and it was all just a bad dream.
Child mentioned in the book that the structure was 20 stories underground. Kerosene was spilling during Reacher's fight with Plato. To my understanding he wasn't directly next to the staircase, but near the B-ring (or C-ring?) as he called it. Reacher could barely move underground.That's when the flare was dropped up top. It would have taken less than 4 seconds for the flare to hit the ground, right next to where all the Kerosene was dumped from the hose in the ventilation shaft. There's no way Reacher could have caught it, because he was too far away and because it was a small object travelling at 130 km/h (80 mph).
Now here's where it gets interesting.
"You will actually have a hard time lighting kerosene with a match. If you put kerosene into a container or spill it on the ground, you will have a hard time lighting it up with a match. That is why kerosene is much safer than flammable liquids."
Okay so maybe the whole place didn't catch fire and Reacher *somehow* got out. He was doused in Kerosene without winter clothes in about -30 °F, colder with windchill. According to the NWS, he'd have frostbite in less than 10 minutes *when dry*, so when wet it's probably 5 minutes tops.
The counter to the hypothermia argument is the heat produced by the fire, but still, surviving this mess is a stretch even for Jack Reacher's standards.
What I found more disturbing is that the story would have unfolded just the same without Reacher there. Holland and Plato would have been dead, burned to a crisp down in the "orphanage".
The outcome may have been even better without Reacher there. Peterson may still be alive. Maybe the witness would have confided her intention to withdraw from the case to Holland, instead of Reacher, possibly making Holland spare her life because of that.
The story made me feel pity for Jack. His loner nature was cool at first, but now it's just lonely. His life lacks purpose. In a final book, maybe it would be a good idea for Reacher to finally settle down with a woman, maybe in an advisory role for the army (martial arts instructor? crime stuff?), just to give his life some purpose back and provide a happy ending. To be honest, I wish he he'd stop getting on buses.
Hannes wrote: "Child mentioned in the book that the structure was 20 stories underground. Kerosene was spilling during Reacher's fight with Plato. To my understanding he wasn't directly next to the staircase, but..."Hi Hannes
Reacher DID try to settle down in Tripwire, which plays out over the next 2 books
Whole ending is pure science fiction. No liquid can be “sucked up” by pump from a depth greater than around 28 feet. Just physically impossible. That’s why submersible pumps exist.
Message 28, Reacher was bounding up the spiral staircase at the end of that segment of the book, "3, 4 steps at a time", etc. So wouldn't he have been able to catch the flare on his way up? Maybe he caught it, and held it --- but then what. I like the one commenter's idea that Reacher grabbed ahold of the filling hose as the truck tore away the best. But was the hose let down through that staircase shaft? Because it would have to be there, as Reacher was on the stairs the last we hear about him. Who knows. I think my college creative writing teacher would have said, the author just got lazy and had to finish the book, and took the easy way out with an ambiguous ending. The author says he likes to get the reader involved but I don't feel that means we have to write the ending for him.
The answer is right there. Yes he survives..."The fire hd burned mostly two hundred and ten feet below the surface, with enhanced thermodynamic characteristics due to the strange aerodynamic stasis in which a gales of air had howled down the stair shaft and the products of combustion had blasted up the twin ventilation shafts...." So the door was open or opened allowing the freezing wind in and down the stairs, preventing the fire blast (and drugs) from coming up the stairs and instead blowing the explosion out the two fireproof ventilation tubes....so Jack was safe
I believe Lee Child made a major mistake in this book. It is physically impossible to vertically "suck' any liquid farther than about 25 feet. Pumps don't suck, they create a vacuum. The weight of the fuel would overcome the atmospheric pressure needed to "push" the fuel up the pipe. They would not have been able to bring any fuel to the surface in the first place. The only way to have done it is if there was a pump at the bottom.
Seeing as the flashpoint of Kerosene is about 100 F, perhaps Jack had ample time to escape before ignitable fumes had sufficiently formed from the heat formed by the burning Kerosene in the maze of tunnels to achieve flashpoint status - then KABOOM.
