Tripwire

Jack Reacher is an ultra-competent former military policeman, but now drifts around the US solving crimes. If you have a problem, no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe Jack Reacher can help you. That's the opening line for the A-Team, but it fits Jack Reacher.

Anyhow, Jack Reacher starts off this episode in Key West where a private detective has found him. After denying that he's Jack Reacher, he finds the P.I. dead on the side of the road, missing all his fingers.

What sets this one apart from the previous Jack Reacher books I've read is that Reacher has a crisis of confidence partway through. He's made mistakes. And in this case, he may not be able to save all the appropriate characters. Sure, we know Reacher's gonna make it; there are quite a few books still to go in the series. But for the first time it felt like the others might not. So there's a little bit of additional suspense that not present in the earlier books.

As a fan of the movies, reading the Jack Reacher novels should be a joy. However, it's been quite a fall since Reacher's debut in Killing Floor. What I disliked about the second novel continues in this one -- third-person POV, many poor viewpoints, an uninspired mystery... it's quite a disappointment. Reacher himself is barely aware of any plot that wasn't his own, which makes the additional viewpoints superfluous. You would want a masterful dovetailing of multiple character POV throughout the novel and I don't feel we got that. I would say that perhaps half the novel was enjoyable with Reacher doing what Reacher does best, and the remainder was filler.

That said, all the sequences with Reacher are still fantastic. And perhaps my desire to see the author return to first-person POV (and a steady train of thought from the brilliant protagonist) will mean that I'm biased against these novels. Unfair? Perhaps. I'll give this series one more go.

The worst so far--or maybe I'm just getting used to the tricks so they are more transparent. It didn't help that I'd guessed the big reveal early on.

Also, my 1 star rating is in part revenge for being put through so much sadism. I felt I was being tortured by having to read those lovingly detailed scenes. It's an admission of defeat to use over the top graphic violence to emotionally manipulate the reader.

And yet the book still has some charms. The scam using the Botanic Gardens was amusing. There are intelligent observations (and also some stupid ones) about the military, about Viet Nam, about power, about predictability.

The formula is followed in most respects. Reacher has a relationship with a beautiful woman with lots of smarts, physically deformed sadistic villain, deadline that must be met, and so on. The one difference, is the romance doesn't end. I had to start the next novel to see if she is still around, and she is.