The Jack Reacher Thread

[Rowan Morrison]

I must have missed this thread at the time, but on our last holiday I came across two Reacher books left in places we stayed - One Shot and Tripwire. I enjoyed them both, except for One Shot flagrantly plagiarising Enemy at the Gates, but my favourite part was the end of Tripwire where 

 

Spoiler

Reacher survives because he's dug so many swimming pools over the summer that he's buff to the point of being bulletproof.

 

That was proper amazing. I haven't read one since, to my shame. I must try to set that right.

[Vimster]

Earlier this year I read Without Fail and came away disappointed. It felt like a very long intro with a few plot points put in to keep interest but nothing more. Plus it was a good 100 pages too long, could have done with a bit of a trim. Maybe it's just me but it felt like a misstep.

[keineboom]

Anybody reading Past Tense? Currently near the end and it's definitely one of my favourites in the series now.

 

Quite impressed with how Lee Child keeps the books and Reacher himself interesting (though I'm sure some may disagree). I love the books as pure escapist nonsense, may have to start again from the beginning!

[Plissken]

Just finished Past Tense.  After a couple of still reasonably decent outings, I really enjoyed this one.    It's a little derivative of some other stories - something he's done before to be honest - but the two main mysteries were pretty good and came together nicely.  By the end I also cared for characters who weren't Reacher which isn't something Child normally manages to pull off.

[Ork1927]

On 21 November 2018 at 13:40, keineboom said:

Anybody reading Past Tense? Currently near the end and it's definitely one of my favourites in the series now.

 

Quite impressed with how Lee Child keeps the books and Reacher himself interesting (though I'm sure some may disagree). I love the books as pure escapist nonsense, may have to start again from the beginning!

 

I did a re-read from the beginning and about half way through the series found one I'd never read before!!

[Monkeyboy]

I haven't read a Reacher book in ages. I tried to pinpoint why I stopped, or at least struggled on regardless for a few more books before quitting, and I think it's when he became this weird maths genius all of a sudden. Prior to that he seemed to operate on a lot of gut instinct, which I think I preferred. Gone Tomorrow is the last full one I read. Then I skipped ahead to Night School and just gave up with it. It was terrible.

[Plissken]

Happy New Reacher Day - Blue Moon is out today. I want nodding. And shrugging.

 

Quote

In the next highly anticipated installment of Lee Child’s acclaimed suspense series, Jack Reacher comes to the aid of an elderly couple. . . and confronts his most dangerous opponents yet. “Jack Reacher is today’s James Bond, a thriller hero we can’t get enough of.”—Ken Follett “This is a random universe,” Reacher says. “Once in a blue moon things turn out just right.” This isn’t one of those times. Reacher is on a Greyhound bus, minding his own business, with no particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there. Then he steps off the bus to help an old man who is obviously just a victim waiting to happen. But you know what they say about good deeds. Now Reacher wants to make it right. An elderly couple have made a few well-meaning mistakes, and now they owe big money to some very bad people. One brazen move leads to another, and suddenly Reacher finds himself a wanted man in the middle of a brutal turf war between rival Ukrainian and Albanian gangs. Reacher has to stay one step ahead of the loan sharks, the thugs, and the assassins. He teams up with a fed-up waitress who knows a little more than she’s letting on, and sets out to take down the powerful and make the greedy pay. It’s a long shot. The odds are against him. But Reacher believes in a certain kind of justice. . . the kind that comes along once in a blue moon.

 

[Plissken]

Finished it over a long train journey.  Definitely one of the better ones, I'd give it a 7/10. The plot has got a few problems to say the least but the individual sequences are definitely up to par.  As usual, it touches one a few areas of American society that Child misses the opportunity to comment on - obviously this a deliberate choice, but I figured if you can't say something about them in one of the most popular book series in the world, when can you?

[Monkeyboy]

How often does he say nothing?

[Captain Novaforce]

Lee Child passes the baton:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/18/jack-reacher-series-author-lee-child-quits-and-lets-brother-step-in

 

Quote

 

The author of the Jack Reacher series of novels is retiring and handing over the writing duties to his brother, according to a report.

 

Quote

Lee Child said he has been searching for a way to kill off the title character, portrayed on film by Tom Cruise, for years but has ultimately decided his fans deserve to see him live on in books which will now be written by Andrew Grant.

 

A shame but there's probably enough material out there for a well designed AI to keep writing them.

 

[Plissken]

It's out now.

 

Quote

Jack Reacher gets off the bus in a sleepy no-name town outside Nashville, Tennessee. He plans to grab a cup of coffee and move right along.

Not going to happen.

The town has been shut down by a cyber attack. At the centre of it all, whether he likes it or not, is Rusty Rutherford. He's an average IT guy, but he knows more than he thinks.

As the bad guys move in on Rusty, Reacher moves in on them . . .

And now Rusty knows he's protected, he's never going to leave the big man's side.

Reacher might just have to stick around and find out what the hell's gone wrong . . . and then put it right, like only he can.

 

I shall dive in and report back.  I expect at least 5% nodding and 3.75% shrugging.

[Ork1927]

Is this Child’s last or his brother’s first?

[Plissken]

Looks like the brothers first.

[Plissken]

OK, technically it is a collaboration but the differences in writing style leap out at you - mainly because Andrew can write a sentence longer than six words.  When he tries to mimic his brothers style (or Lee contributes) it jars a fair bit.  And there is not a lot of nodding and shrugging.  The previously laconic and laidback Reacher just won't shut up this time.  The indepth descriptions of Reachers calculating every punch and jab are missing as well.  Oh, and a distinct lack of 9mm Parabellums.

 

That is not to say it is a bad Reacher novel, because it isn't.  The story moves along at a fair clip, the standard twisty Big Plot in a Small Place is all present and correct and the whole thing comes together nicely, with the usual slightly ludicrous bits.

 

For a first go at taking over one of the most popular series in the world I'd say it pretty much succeeds.  It's clearly an attempt at a literary version of swapping James Bond out every 5 movies or so, so you have the comforting familiar mixed in with a slightly different style.  If you told me there was another one in the pipeline, then consider it ordered already.

[Monkeyboy]

I've just finished The Sentinel and I agree it's a success. I like that Reacher talks a bit more. The next one, Better Off Dead, is out in October. 394 pages, which seems quite short for a Reacher novel.

[Plissken]

It’s New Reacher Day.

[Plissken]

As the only person contributing to this thread, I have been lax in noting the new book, No Plan B, out like clockwork.

 

Read it on the plane back from the States.  It's pretty good.  Either Andrew has got better at mimicking his brothers style or there a lot more Lee in the writing of this one.  Though a few "that's for damn sure" came from characters other than Reacher, which feels like sacrilege.

 

One thing this does have is something that he's done for the last few.  The main mystery seems a bit meh, whereas a side plot could have been much more interesting.  No Plan B has three threads running through it which all tie up nicely at the end, but the main reveal gave me an "oh, OK" and one of the side plots was "oh, that would have been good".  However, it kind of feels like Child pulls his punches in order to avoid upsetting the audience, because these side plots are definitely "ew, gross".  He even introduces and chucks away in a single page something that could have formed the basis for an entire Reacher book!

 

I'll not spoil this one, I'll put spoilers around an earlier book - Make Me - the one about the town of Mothers Rest, which sort of does the same thing.

 

Spoiler

The secret at the heart of Mothers Rest is that the bad guys are running an online snuff empire.  But that actual revelation is not particularly explored much.  Reacher storms the building, kills people, finds out what is going on at the same time as the reader and then swiftly moves on to killing others.  It's like Child didn't want to dwell too much on the dark web/snuff thing.

 

In previous books, there was definitely gross stuff which was generally used to give Reacher additional motivation.  I'm not saying that I want to read pages and pages of it, but it definitely feels restricted to a quick glimpse now, and Reacher is already killing people so doesn't need the extra shove.

 

 

The footballer references are getting far too obvious though.

[Monkeyboy]

How many nods and shrugs in this one?

 

I've fallen behind on Reacher so need to catch up a bit.

[Monkeyboy]

Also, can't believe I started this thread ten years ago!

[Plissken]

On 13/01/2023 at 19:08, Monkeyboy said:

How many nods and shrugs in this one?

 

I've fallen behind on Reacher so need to catch up a bit.

 

A distinct lack of nodding and shrugging.  He's got a lot more loquacious in recent outings.

[Monkeyboy]

Monkeyboy said nothing.