Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher Novels) Reviews

• Rare miss for Child

  
  By A3HDP3HWVL4OQ1 on 2008-06-10
  Disappointing. After reeling off 11 good to (often) great Reacher novels, Lee Child struck out with this one. It starts promising enough. Despair had all the makings of a great stage for Reacher to be Reacher, reminiscent of the Killing Floor. But the promise is never fulfilled. The meandering plot doesn't pull you in. Unlike previous stories, the villain is flat, two dimensional and far from frightening - a death sentence for any story of good vs. evil. The action is sparse.
  
  Previous Reacher novels were impossible to put down. You were torn between your desire to get to the end and your hope that the story would keep going. After all, it would be another year before you got the next one. Sadly, that was not true here. The ending seemed slapped on, left lots of loose ends untied and seemed very uncharacteristic for Reacher. But worst of all, it didn't come too soon. It could have come 100 pages sooner.
  
  These were the big problems with the book. Reacher's detour into politics and criticism of the war did seem out of character but not because I had any assumptions about his politics. He always struck me as outside of politics - outside of almost everything for that matter.
  
  Lee, everyone is entitled to a miss, especially after the roll you have been on. Here is hoping the next one is back to your old form
  
  

• Everything to Lose, Lee

  
  By A1SKNS2DGG46XM on 2008-06-07
  Holy conspiracy theories, Batman! Did somebody take James Lee Burke and tuck his liberal rants between the covers of a Lee Child novel?
  
  Don't get me wrong - Burke and Child are two of my favorite authors - but the venerable Burke started a fast descent when his politics began to irrationally overpower the gripping atmospheric prose of the Mississippi delta and Dave Robicheaux's hard-hitting tales of southern noir. But if one were to judge Child solely on the basis of "Nothing to Lose", they might conclude that that he is already well down that slippery slope. Which would be a true disservice to the author and his readers.
  
  So this starts out as the vintage Lee Child/Jack Reacher thrill fest, with the stoic loaner Reacher alone on a desolate highway separating the fictitious and allegorically named Colorado towns of Hope and Despair. Borrowing heavily from Stallone's "First Blood" - and even a bit from Stephen King's eerie "Desperation" - Reacher wants nothing more than a cup of coffee while passing through Despair. Instead, he finds himself first ignored and then in jail for vagrancy. With a provocative and mysterious prologue, and Reacher's first fist fight by page fifteen, all the pieces were quickly falling into place for a classic Child/Reacher escape to fast action and delicious revenge. The mystery of the Despair deepened, a company town supported by a massive metal recycling plant and controlled Waco-like by the omnipresent "Mr. Thurman". And keeping with his trusted and successful formula, Child provides Reacher's love interest in the form of "Vaughan", a patrolman of neighboring Hope.
  
  But a promising start begins to fray around the edges a hundred-or-so pages in, and, by halfway through, has literally lost all "Hope". Repeated encounters between Reacher and Thurman and his thugs become tedious - even boring, unheard of in Child's pages - as the plot meanders and stumbles through incongruities and inconsistencies alien to Child's usually credible plot lines and meticulous research. But in this installment, while Child can still add depth and interest to a story with minutia ranging from the perfect cup of coffee to the physics of a cell phone call, he is inexcusably sloppy in tying together his central theme. Unlike the smart, lean, and unencumbered prose we've been conditioned to expect, "Nothing to Lose" reads with all the clarity and efficiency you'd expect in a "Code Pink" manifesto.
  
  It's a shame, really. Lee Child is arguably the standard in contemporary thriller/action fiction, and Jack Reacher is, as so well said by the Chicago Sun-Times, "...the perfect hero, loved by women, feared by men, respected by all." But not this time. Let's just hope that this episode's muddled and confused Reacher is an aberration, and that next year's entry will return to the straightforward thrills of "Persuader", "Tripwire", or "Killing Floor", rather than following James Lee Burke down a path that will not only cost him a loyal fan base, but also tarnish the great writing that justifiably has earned their fealty.
  
  

• Reacher said: "I'm not looking for a search warrant. I'm waiting for dark."

  
  By A3PHF9UV3F177L on 2008-06-03
  After having Reacher team up with his former army colleagues in "Bad Luck and Trouble", Lee Child has gone back to Reacher's loner roots. "Nothing to Lose" opens with Reacher literally walking into the small town of Despair, Colorado, where he's promptly arrested and run out of town. What are the secrets that the residents of Despair are so desperate to keep hidden? Reacher is equally determined to find out and no one is going to stop him.
  
  The pace of this book is slower than most of the others that Lee Child has written and my feeling is that perhaps it relates to a departure from formula. Usually Reacher encounters someone - a former colleague, an attractive woman, a man with a missing wife - with a problem and that creates the momentum. In this book, he simply stumbles on behavior that he finds odd, and therefore starts investigating, with several clandestine visits to Despair that do start to feel somewhat repetitive. Along the way he teams up with a local policewoman who also provides the obligatory romantic sub-plot. The book keeps you guessing with lots of sub-plots and little mysteries along the way (some of which turn out to be red herrings, but I suppose that adds to the intrigue).
  
  "Nothing to Lose" delivered my much-anticipated "Reacher fix", but it's not Lee Child's best. Although it's a stand-alone novel, I wouldn't recommend starting here if you haven't read any other Lee Child books: you won't get what the fuss is about. I wasn't as absorbed by this one as I have been by the others in the series. The middle section dragged a little, but having said that it's still an easy read that goes down fast and keeps you up turning pages into the night. Probably if it had been another author this would have rated 3 stars for me, but I'm a shameless Reacher fan, so I'm rating it 4 stars.
  
  

• A very disappointing failure; muddled, confused, and unengaging

  
  By A2U83VDVJMAB2U on 2008-06-07
  I've been a Child/Reacher fan throughout the series, but in this unfortunate effort Child stumbles badly.
  
  Briefly, while hitchhiking through Colorado, Reacher finds himself thrown out of the town of Despair for reasons he can't fathom. Naturally this gets his back up, and he decides to make the point that he can't be thrown out of ANY town.
  
  Just like in David Morrell's seminal Rambo novel "First Blood".
  
  Along the way he has an affair with a cop from the neighboring town of Hope; uncovers a couple of conspiracies revolving around the Iraq war, Christian fundamentalists, and Army deserters; and basically tears up the scenery.
  
  Reacher has always been an existential, somewhat nihilistic, central character. But there were certain cornerstones of his character that were fundamental and appealing. An inviolate sense of justice, and a willingness to go to any lengths to help an oppressed underdog.
  
  None of that pertains in this novel, which serves more as a soapbox from which Child preaches his own political views, views which seem to conflict with those we've come to associate with Reacher himself. In this book, Reacher -- himself a former career Army MP officer -- has suddenly become anti-military and anti-war. Jangling and disconcerting, to say the least.
  
  Further, there's no clarity to the story itself. The people of the town of Despair act in unbelievable concert, and their motivation for doing so is never explained in the book. They're almost like the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead".
  
  The twin towns of Hope and Despair seem to exist in a void in the landscape, isolated physically and -- apparently -- functionally from the rest of the state. The few residents of Hope whom we meet in the book all seem to know something bad is going on in Despair, but no one -- including the cops -- does anything about it. Not the cops, not the people; no one even bothers to notify the state authorities, evidently. It's as if this little part of Colorado exists in a vacuum. Very Twilight Zone.
  
  As far as execution, there's a lot of Reacher going back and forth between Hope and Despair -- how metaphorical, I'm sure -- and it's boring, frankly. Further, the "science" of some of the aspects of the book is just plain wrong, as is Child's description of some aspects of US Army organization -- a flaw you'd think Child would be able to avoid with a little basic research, which you'd think he'd have done if his central character's an ex-Army officer.
  
  The success of the Reacher novels in the past has been somewhat formulaic, but it's an appealing formula: Reacher stumbles onto a situation in which an innocent is being victimized by an evil person. They're stories about justice ultimately prevailing, but they're also, at their core, small stories. This is appropriate and believable for a Lone Ranger-type figure like Jack Reacher.
  
  In this book Child is trying to have Reacher take on an entire system, and it doesn't wash at all. A bad case of over-Reaching (sorry; I couldn't help myself).
  
  
  

• His slip is showing

  
  By A3BJWDWYMIDIVV on 2008-06-04
  Not his best, alas, and it's hard to explain what's wrong without spoiling some of the plot points, but I'll try. There were hints in past novels that author Lee Child is anti-military, despite all his military plotlines. In this latest, his slip is showing big time. The good guys are folks who are really fed up with the military. The bad guys are active military, and even worse military contractors, and finally, the worst of all possible villains: Christians. Fundamentalist Christians.
  
  Can anyone guess the intended victims of the Christians? (Not a spoiler; it barely registers in the plot).
  
  Canadians are singled out for particular praise because they were smart enough not to fight in Iraq. And real American soldiers are opposed to the war in Iraq too because they're smart enough to see through the BS - just ask 'em, any one of 'em. There's also a gratuitous horrors-of-war subplot which owes a substantial debt to Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun", if anyone still remembers that fine piece of propaganda.
  
  The protagonist Jack Reacher has suddenly acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of Holy Scripture, which he quotes literally chapter and verse whenever it comes in handy, and specifically to put down fundamentalists who "cherrypick" the Bible to support their own agenda. Kind of hard to swallow from our avowedly atheist action hero.
  
  The main plot point is invalid as a matter of physics, and of medicine, but it is a very popular stalking horse of environmentalists and anti-war activists. Similar stuff has been bubbling beneath the surface throughout the series, but this time Lee Child just couldn't stifle the politics. Well, I don't need politics in a Reacher novel, and I'll bet you don't either. Overall the series is still excellent, but don't start with this one or you'll be disappointed.
  
  
  
• Despair....
  By AECYRCK7GQNOX on 2008-06-09
  Unfortunately Mr. Child has decided to inject his politics into what used to be my favorite book series and my favorite character. After 300 pages of atypical meandering, boring, storyline from Mr. Child we are then subjected to 100 pages of anti-american, anti-Bush, anti-military, anti-christian bias from the author. Reacher used to be my most awaited book, I doubt that I will ever buy another of Mr. Child's books. What a shame and shame on the author.
  Of Course now that Child/Reacher is out of the leftwing closet think of all the new plotlines that can be used: Reacher the Eco-Warrior kicking butt on all americans that don't worship at the altar of "An Inconvenient Truth", or Reacher defender of oppressed "undocumented americans" the possibilities are endless!!!
  
  Honestly this series used to be one of the few places that I could escape the intrusion of political correctness and indoctrination and just be entertained by a main character that epitomized good vs evil and believed in doing the right thing.... oh well so much for that....
  
  
• Falls far short of the other Reacher novels
  By A14Z6M0O0VZD9G on 2008-06-08
  I am sorry to say that this one was a major disappointment. It is an antiwar propaganda leaflet, not an exciting thriller. Reacher finally takes up arms in the War on Terror, but not in the way you'd expect.
  
  Reacher is called upon to stop a "dirty bomb" that is about to be detonated in an American city. The nefarious villain masterminding this terrorist plot is not a Al Qaeda extremist, but -- of course -- a fundamentalist Christian businessman who is trying to bring about events foretold in the Book of Revelation. The bomb is made of depleted Uranium from salvaged American tank armor, and Reacher gives one of the other characters a detailed briefing on the grave dangers posed by highly toxic depleted Uranium munitions -- a briefing that would do a MOVEON activist proud.
  
  We learn that Reacher is against the war in Iraq when he refuses to expose a network of deserters being smuggled to Canada, stating that he has great sympathy for the deserters and that what they do takes "even more courage" than remaining in combat. His love interest in the book is a wife of an American soldier who has been turned into a vegetable by a brain injury. Reacher and the wife go to visit this wounded veteran, and we learn that they can actually see his brain protruding from the side of his head. Naturally, the conditions in his long-term care facility are appalling; the rooms are filthy, there are mice everywhere, and the staff is surly and unfeeling.
  
  I am a flag-waiving conservative who supports the war in Iraq. However, I do have an open mind. I recognize that many who oppose the war do so in good faith. Moreover, I am not looking for a book that reinforces my own prejudices. And even if I were, I can certainly be entertained by a book even though I might disagree with its message.
  
  But this isn't a book -- it's a ham-fisted piece of left-wing propaganda. The plot is like something dreamed up by a bunch of European college students upon their return from an anti-globalization protest. Every cheesy left-wing cliche imaginable was used in the book, and it is simply awful. At the end you are left wondering when Reacher will sign up for human shield duty in Iraq, it's that bad.
  
  
• Child gets David Baldacci Syndrome
  By A2UQXAU7IRZZ0L on 2008-06-22
  I've read and thoroughly enjoyed every Jack Reacher novel. I ordered "Nothing To Lose" weeks before its release, and welcomed its arrival. It was a big disappointment.
  
  I'm sad to report that Lee Child has contracted the David Baldacci Syndrome. It's a malady, that turned me off to Baldacci a year or so ago, that some successful suspense writers catch after they've reach a level of success whereby their successive works are eagerly awaited by loyal readers. The symptom occurs when the authors begins to vent their own geo-political views through the mouths of their lead fictional characters.
  
  It starts on p. 273 where Reacher says, "Because deep down to the army a wounded soldier that can't fight anymore is garbage. So we depend only civilians, and civilians don't care either." I know that to not necessarily to be the case, although there are certainly individual cases where reasonable people feel that way. My initial reaction was - well, that's interesting. Perhaps Childs has been watching BBC and reading The Guardian too much. I kept reading.
  
  The sub-theme, wherein Child vents his frustration with the Iraq War, the military, and the government, continues to be intermittently expressed though the mouth of JR. The book has 407 pages. At page 354, I'd had enough, closed it up, and put it down for good. I neither know nor cared how ends, although in a sub-religion theme I think I saw it coming. Fifty pages short of the end, Child had made his primary point. The JR storyline was merely the vehicle.
  
  I read suspense novels (e.g., Vince Flynn, Michael Connelly) to escape - not to be indoctrinated by a fiction writer.
  
  The JR character has about reached his shelf life limit anyway. A guy his age is becoming ill-equipped to fist fight several large men at once. But if there is, as advertised, another JR novel coming out - count me out.
  
  
  
• Lee Child has lost it!
  By AB3Y0U9V1DB2S on 2008-06-27
  I have read all the Jack Reacher novels and couldn't wait for this. But, how disappointing it was!! Lee Child has gone to the liberal left. He had Reacher taking multiple snide remarks about our military in Iraq. The evil in this book was a midwest preacher, who 'owned' a town of religious zealots intent on detonating a bomb to bring on the Rapture. If the theme wasn't bad enough, Child filled the pages with extensive unrelated and boring minutiae suck as every cup of coffe and shower taken. Jack Reacher must be ashamed to be in this book. Save your money on this loser. Madeline
  
  
• "Open season and lawless... the way he liked it."
  By A2MF2QVSCUI27G on 2008-06-03
  
  
  Anyone unfamiliar with Jack Reacher is in for a treat, this one-man army currently trekking across the country, west and south, "from the Atlantic to the Pacific, cool and damp to hot and dry". This journey takes Jack into unexpectedly hostile territory, literally from Hope to Despair, a company town of rigorous security and at the center a wealthy, powerful uber-religious man's lucrative recycling enterprise. Stepping into the only diner in town, not only doesn't Jack get served, he is arrested- after taking out a few burly but surprised opponents. After a night courtesy of the DPD, Reacher is hustled back to the boundaries of Hope, where he makes the acquaintance of Vaughn, a member of Hope's police department who is both curious and skeptical about this enigmatic stranger. Jack had every intention of passing through Despair, but after a taste of its inhospitality, he wants to know what exactly is going on in this middle-of-nowhere place.
  
  Tell Jack to do something and he will do exactly the opposite, soon to become a considerable aggravation to Despair's authorities. Vaughn is also curious about some recent activities in the neighboring town and more than a little willing to assist Jack in his quest to uncover the nature of the bustling commerce so carefully shielded from prying eyes. In return, Reacher offers Vaughn some well-deserved support in a personal dilemma that has shattered her dreams for the future. In fine form, Child builds a frightening house of cards erected by three separate agendas, but all balancing on one horrific possibility. Returning to Despair night after night to confirm his suspicions, Reacher's problem is to subvert the most heinous plot without bringing down the entire structure to the detriment of the residents of a town that exhibits extraordinary loyalty to its employer.
  
  Child delivers with the usual one-two punch of crisp dialog, ill-equipped actors and the unchecked arrogance of power, digging deep into the assorted bag of fears that currently plague this country, tossing out a handful of issues for consideration, each of which is daunting on its own merits. The iconoclast never actively looks for trouble, reasonable to the extreme when confronted with options other than violence; he offers his opponents the same free choice he exercises. Trusting his logic as well as his impressive physical skills, Jack Reacher, a man with nothing to lose, puts it all on the line in a harrowing conclusion of good vs. evil, an epic struggle that is merely an appetizer for a protagonist with an appetite for action. Luan Gaines/ 2008.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Very disappointing for a true Lee Child/Jack Reacher fan
  By A188CFUI5J2LDF on 2008-06-08
  Lee Child's last book, Bad Luck and Trouble, was a true masterpiece, and having read all of his books, it was clear to me that his work was getting better and better with each addition. Well, I have to say that this book did not follow the trend. The plot was boring, something of a mix of Killing Floor and Echo Burning, and Reacher's uniqueness and charm didn't come through. It was like this book was slapped together, or written by somebody else. Also, while I don't always agree with Reacher's tactics, what he does at the end of this book is deplorable.
  
  
• not the jack reacher i liked
  By A2JON4G42M0TB8 on 2008-06-10
  this book goes into the circular file... terrible plot, political diatribe a total wate of my money
  
  
• Despair, indeed
  By A3R1FQ5J1279A3 on 2008-06-13
  Hope and Despair? Really? What is this, Dr. Seuss? Actually, it's a moveon.org commercial. It's not just that we want Reacher to shut up and fight, it's the absolute extreme nature of the politics-- he all of a sudden sounds like Jane Fonda instead of Mike Hammer. Worst line said something about how a wounded soldier is garbage to the Army. That's the worst kind of crap, and Mr. Child should pay attention to more than newspaper exposes about one wing of Walter Reed Hospital. If he'd actually MET a wounded vet, he'd know better.
  
  
• Disappointed in Despair
  By A1E1ASP7Y1I1ZG on 2008-06-17
  I am so disappointed with this book. Why project your foreign political views on an American soldier? I also waited breathlessly for this book. I have read all of the others and couldn't wait for the next one.
  It was plodding, and really led nowhere but to Despair in the end.
  I will think twice about continuing to read this series at all.
  The author has gathered a following of readers with certain perceptions of a beloved character. Now, he appears to think he has made his millions and is ready to tell the world how he really feels. It does not matter to him that this is "out of character" for our hero as we have come to love him. It's called bait and switch. Very sad.
  
  
• Plenty to Lose, My Time and Money....
  By A32ILWE671I4O8 on 2008-06-13
  I have always been a huge Reacher fan, primarily due to the edge, the apolitical background and the personal quest for right and wrong. However this one really let me down. So typical of the the "New York" publishing chic: Bush is bad, Iraq is evil, Christians are creeps, workers are exploited by cruel capitalism. I am surprised we didn't have an evil oil company involved, a group of fundamentalists planning to blow up an abortion clinic or a global warming devastation. I thought Lee Child was above all of this.
  
  Hopefully Reacher will get back to his "old self" in the future. However you can be sure I wil read the reviews before I automatically purchase the next one. It is a shame.
  
  
  
  
• Keep walking Reacher. We're done.
  By A19G8CIKN7U828 on 2008-06-12
  It must be the end of the world; Jack Reacher has turned politically correct! Lee Child needs to go visit some of the world he writes about (outside of New York) to clear the liberal cobwebs out of his head.
  
  Am I wrong, or was the appeal of Jack Reacher that he stayed out of politics and religion and went his own way? What's next, banning violence?
  
  Keep walking Reacher. We're done.
  
  
• a boring disappointment
  By A32ZCBZN79PG4D on 2008-06-13
  I have purchased every one of Lee Child's books, and preordered this one. And it is so disappointing. It is boring. It goes on and on with Child's trademark word for word descriptions, to the point where I started skipping over PAGES. The plot is a mishmash of crazy evangelists, the Book of Revelation, US army secrecy, underground railroads for AWOL soldiers, and a whole town full of cancer-ridden maniacal people, who for some reason cannot leave their feudal prison. None of it holds together, and after awhile, I simply did not care about any of the characters, or the outcome of the story.
  
  And I was looking forward to this book, too. Darn.
  
  
• child should take some time off
  By A2DGZBQPTQ8BOS on 2008-06-06
  child was reaching. i went from hope at the start to despair at the end.
  
  
• this is not entertainment
  By A2HAHRVXZL70I8 on 2008-06-06
  lee child says he's in the entertainment business........this is not an entertaining book....it is a political diatribe combined with a laundry list of statistics and an implausible plot....i have been a fan since book one and generally recommend the books without hesitation....but i think i'll take a pass on this one.
  
  
• Jumped The Shark
  By AZPZHZR5OX57F on 2008-06-07
  I'm about 1/2 way through this book and am having trouble going any farther. I've read all of the other Reacher books and liked some more then others. But this one is going nowhere. It doesn't capture any of the charm, fun, adventure, etc. that Child's previous works did. The more I read on, the more disillusioned, bored and frustrated I get...it's like work, bad work at that. I always looked forward to another Jack Reacher adventure, but now I know I'll wait for the paperback edition IF I ever read another Reacher book again.
  
  
• Monumental Waste of Time
  By AKEA449IZ2LY9 on 2008-06-17
  Huge disappointment. First book in 63 years of reading that got tossed in the garbage.
  
  
• Military Ethics, Country, God, Corp, Unit
  By A2QFNSAPNXD5K6 on 2008-06-26
  Lee Child has reached the limit to his military expertise. The fight scenes are repetitive and slow. The land navigation is OK but his knowledge of Army ethics are abysmal. The worst problem with this book is his use of the saying: "Unit, Corp, God and Country". He attributes this to the Marines but it comes from the movie, "A Few Good Men" Military ethics stress the correct order is the reverse, God, Country, Corp and Unit. Child's error is echoed in the politics of the plot. This is Child's worst book.
  
  
• Child Crosses the Line, Really a Pity
  By AV3TYLDXYXFAM on 2008-06-13
  Jack Reacher is (was) my favorite fictional character. I pre-ordered this book, based on the sensational series of Reacher novels that preceded it. (Note to self: reconsider pre-ordering books in the future as wife found same book at local BAMM store two days before my copy arrived.) I devoured this book with great relish. The first 64 chapters were vintage Child! Reacher is ever strong and street-smart, while also being vulnerable. There was the inevitable (temporary) feminine romance. And, Jack willingly injected himself into several deliciously tense situations. Child is an artist at building drama and tension and Reacher's fight scenes are, again, things of beauty.
  
  So, what's not to like?
  
  Imagine anticipating the latest Rambo movie for months. Then, you get to the theater and the movie starts. Sly is slicing through the bad guys left and right and you are really getting into it. Then, suddenly, Rambo leaves the jungles of SE Asia and joins an anti-war peace march led by "Hanoi Jane!" Why, you'd say "Wait a doggone minute! Rambo would never do that! That is WAY out of character."
  
  That is the left-turn Child takes with Reacher's character. Do I feel let down? Wish that was the case. I feel betrayed, stepped on, spit on and taken advantage of. Child turns the novel, in Chapter 65, into a political diatribe that is disgusting. If he did so only with the plot, well, I wouldn't have liked it. But, he does so with his central character. That is the line Child stepped over.
  
  I put this book down in the midst of chapter 66. In fact, I gave the book away. Short of some sort of resurrection, I cannot imagine purchasing one of Child's books again. Lee, you deceived me in the worst way. From everything I read leading up to this novel, Reacher's character would have never taken the position you had him assume in this book. It is not only unbelievable, it tarnishes the entire series of novels.
  
  Good riddance.
  
  
• Despair over this novel
  By A1L6XHHN1QUMB2 on 2008-06-16
  I've been a big fan, but this was disappointing. It was tedious, and repetitious. Back and forth from town to town. Running into the same characters, with almost the same dialog. It seemed like half the novel was Reacher riding on a road, sometimes in a pickup, sometimes in police car, sometimes walking, sometimes hitchhiking.
  
  Not even close on this one.
  
  
• Shockingly pedestrian
  By A1RKD1I8MW1LG6 on 2008-06-28
  After reading about 8 of Child's Jack Reacher books, I finally found a dud. It started out thrilling, as expected, but quickly become almost boring. I can not believe I am typing those words.
  
  Reacher's repeatedly doing the same thing, over and over (returning to a bad place) was tedious and so unlike our hero's usual behavior. The plot wandered all over the place and the book was too long.
  
  I found it impossible to buy into the far-fetched "conspiracy theory" with its pathetic "villains" and was surprised at Child's foray into political opinion (putting his opinions into Reacher's mouth -which completely changed Reacher's character). This was totally out of place, I thought, and awkward at best.
  
  I just hope that Child has not run out of stories and that he will return Reacher to his previous inventive adventures.
  
  I only read the Amazon reviews after finishing the book, and must say I am not surprised that there are 110 reviews and the average is an abyssmal 2.5 stars. Most of his other books have averaged 4 stars.
  
  
• Controversial theme
  By A3BH49ZKESHDID on 2008-06-07
  Jack Reacher is a drifter by choice. He has spent the last 10 years seeing the country, sometimes by bus, and sometimes hitchhiking. If you have followed the series, you know that he sometimes stops for a while and sometimes works for a while. He travels light, with a folding toothbrush and the clothes on his back.
  
  This novel finds him in the neighboring towns of Hope and Despair in Colorado. He had shown up in Despair because he was attracted by the name. He only wanted to buy lunch and go on his way. But the people in despair don't like strangers. They refuse to sell him lunch, then kick him out of town as a vagrant. That gets him both annoyed, and curious about the town. He, of course, stays around and sticks his nose into things (also his fist).
  
  The plot may seem a little off-the-wall, but it is fiction. You do have to wonder about small company towns where someone effectively owns the town. Reacher, as usual, makes his own rules. It is up to other people to clean up what he leaves behind.
  
  This novel will annoy some readers with the criticism of present US foreign policy and comments on religious extremists. Expect the reviews to me mixed.
  
  The novel also deals with the issue of obligations to a spouse "Til death do us part," as well as environmental issues and issues of safe working environments. There is also a side issue on the treatment of people who are incapacitated.
  
  
• The Weakest Reacher But Has Its Moments
  By A2RLERHASR0RLP on 2008-06-12
  Some of the reviewers are puzzled why so many readers give this book three stars despite their obvious disappointment with it. Well, here's my explanation: Reacher alone is worth five stars, as is Child's ability to focus on fascinating bits of minutiae as Reacher meditates on everything from the shape of the perfect coffee cup to the inner workings of a cell phone and to create interesting encounters with peripheral characters. Then there is the good will amassed from the previous Reacher books. We're subtracting stars due to high expectations not met, but not willing to give up on Child or Reacher. I'm torn myself between wanting to express my disappointment, and not wanting to discourage an author who has created a great and memorable character and whose average is mostly riveting. Ironically, this was the first Reacher novel I bought in hardcover, because I had just finished plowing through the rest and couldn't wait, and it was the most disappointing. It wasn't the book's so-called liberal politics (which some of us might call mere observation). Reacher doesn't exist in a vacuum; he's an intelligent man, and he's complicated enough to be a soldier to the bone without backing everything the military does. But in this book, his motivations were more than usually hard to swallow. He goes out of his way to court trouble, and yet oddly enough - for a thriller - is rarely seriously threatened. His opponents mostly just collapse. (Increasing SPOILERS ahead...) The salt-pepper-sugar triple plot never holds together. We are asked to believe in a company town so thoroughly controlled that its citizens become a raging mob on cue (like the 'Star Trek' episode where the populace goes crazy when Landro tells them it's the Red Hour) and yet there are enough independent thinkers within it to operate an underground railroad for AWOL soldiers.... Reacher comes and goes, is caught and let go, vaguely menaced by "the guy with the wrench" or "the big foreman" but you never are afraid for him or feel any real tension. The book feels like a 200 page plot padded out to 400 pages by repeated visits to the same place and the driving of the same roads, over and over. Once you understand the ultimate threat, you hope for a grand showdown, but the villain is easily defeated, and Reacher's final act - the detonation of a dirty bomb! - is utterly out of character. After all, this is the same Reacher (or should be) who once allowed himself to be kidnapped because he wouldn't risk firing his gun with a trajectory into a crowded intersection. Now, he's willing to create a three mile blast zone (and he could only have guessed the circumference) to prove something? Unfortunately, even the requisite romantic interest left me cold. As usual, she is referred to by her last name - Vaughan - and, as usual, she has a great body, a law enforcement job, and a flexible attitude to being loved and left, but even within those bounds, she never adds up to a real person. She goes rather quickly from being completely indifferent to the evil town next door to aiding and abetting Reacher in his nightly forays, and while her personal situation (which does include a touching episode) could certainly lead to schizophrenic attitudes, her ultimate tirade against Reacher and quick emotional collapse felt forced rather than real and made me positively dislike her, especially when she gave him a completely unnecessary put-down in bed. Hey, lady, Reacher never pretends to be the World's Greatest Lover. He just acts happy and grateful for it in every book, which is something I like about him, and I suspect other female readers do, too. Which circles back to... five stars for Reacher, with maybe one star off for acting out of character, and another one off for a rather lame plot, but high hopes for the next one out of the gate.
  
  
• Goodbye Reacher
  By A8S50TIYJVFKG on 2008-06-12
  Boring and contrived. It's strange that Jack Reacher knows so much about physics, chemistry, calculus, and philosophy, and yet he has never been known to read a book. I have read everything in the Reacher series and, although this one was pretty boring from the start, I was willing to wait and see what was going to happen. But when Child went into his anti-war rant toward the end, I closed the book and threw it into the garbage. Goodbye Jack Reacher.
  
  
  
  
• We may have a Patricia Cornwall happening
  By A1TXBAGAR2DHHA on 2008-06-28
  We may have a Patricia Cornwall happening here. The author has run out of good stories. What got us interested in the KILLING FLOOR has simply run out of steam....ala Cornwall. Sad to see.....or read.
  
  
• Disappointed
  By AJBZA21X823IN on 2008-06-10
  The latest Jack Reacher novel was a disappointment. I am a big fan of Lee Child's Reacher novels and bought this book as soon as it was out. I should have waited for the paperback. It was definitely not up to Child's previous novels. Maybe it was too much politics or the typical bad guys: "religious conservatives", but the story just didn't work. I thought Reacher's sympathy for the AWOL soldiers didn't ring true to his character. I hope Child gets Reacher back on track for his next adventure.
  
  

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