pnutbutterprincess reviewed Tripwire by Lee Child
Review of 'Tripwire' on 'Storygraph'
1 star
Jack Reacher is ex-military, built like the side of a house, and a drifter.
He hasn't been out of the military very long, and someone comes looking for him. Out of habit, mostly, he sidesteps the man's questions, denying his identity, but finds the man dead later that night. Whoever was after that man, a detective from New York, is now after Reacher as well, and he doesn't know why.
In Tripwire, we follow Reacher as he recounts his military history, meets people from the past, and tries to solve the mystery of a MIA soldier who got lost in Vietnam. Alongside this story, we watch the business dealings of "Hook" Hobie simultaneously unfold as the pieces fall together and the storylines eventually connect.
I'm not really much into mysteries, though I've only read a few, and I'm not that much into action. Jack Reacher may as well be …
Jack Reacher is ex-military, built like the side of a house, and a drifter.
He hasn't been out of the military very long, and someone comes looking for him. Out of habit, mostly, he sidesteps the man's questions, denying his identity, but finds the man dead later that night. Whoever was after that man, a detective from New York, is now after Reacher as well, and he doesn't know why.
In Tripwire, we follow Reacher as he recounts his military history, meets people from the past, and tries to solve the mystery of a MIA soldier who got lost in Vietnam. Alongside this story, we watch the business dealings of "Hook" Hobie simultaneously unfold as the pieces fall together and the storylines eventually connect.
I'm not really much into mysteries, though I've only read a few, and I'm not that much into action. Jack Reacher may as well be 250 pounds of meat for all I really care about him. Granted, I didn't want him to die, and I was glad he was able to find something to do other than be a drifter, but someone built like the side of a house with fists the size of footballs has zero appeal, and while his methods of problem-solving are interesting, I am detached from them. There were a few things that rubbed me the wrong way, like an insinuation that young people don't appreciate courtesies like people holding the door for them and letting them go through first, and a comment about how people in business class on a plane were "middle-grade" people. I don't believe in that kind of school of thought. People aren't ranked or graded like that. Just because this guy was flying first class does not give him the right to look down on and judge people with cheaper tickets. That's a bit of a pet peeve.
The good things about this book was that it was not overtly terrible or poorly written, and made for a fairly quick read. It held my interest because I wanted to see how it ended, though I wasn't invested in the characters all that much due to not really being able to relate to them or like them. I have another book by the same author on my shelf, but I am really reconsidering reading it after this one. It feels kind of like one of those when you've read one you've read them all situations, and it's about the same protagonist. This book fell probably closer to the two star range, but because my opinion will probably soften over time as I forget how little real pleasure I got from reading this, I'm leaving it at one.
If action/mystery with some military flavor is something you enjoy, though, this may be just the thing for you, as it was a fairly quick read with a decent amount of action to keep the story moving.
