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Echo Burning (Jack Reacher) by Lee Child
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Lee Child Edition: Mass Market Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2007-11-27 ISBN: 0515143820 Number of pages: 576 Publisher: Jove Product features: - ISBN13: 9780515143829
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Echo Burning (Jack Reacher)Book Review: Great read by the master Summary: 5 Stars
Its hard to beat Jack Reacher books when they are on form.Each generation, I suppose, has its favorite fictional Tough Guys. For my parents, it may have been Bogart and The Duke. For me, they've been Clint, Bruce, and Mel on the Big Screen, and the literary British spy Quiller. However, in the past couple of years, Jack Reacher has arrived on the killing fields. And he's perhaps tougher, certainly smarter, than any who've gone before.
A former Army major assigned to the Military Police, Jack has been aimlessly roaming the United States through several novels, and attracting big trouble in each one. In ECHO BURNING, he's hitchhiked into sunburnt West Texas where he's given a ride by Carmen Greer, who's cruising the highways on the lookout for a Tough Guy. Carmen lives with her young daughter, Ellie, on an arid ranch with her hateful brother-in-law and mother-in-law while her husband, Sloop, serves time in a federal pen for tax evasion. According to the story Carmen spins, her spouse had been viciously beating her for years. Since Sloop is due to be released in forty-eight hours, Carmen expects the beatings to begin anew, especially since she was the one that ratted on Sloop to the IRS. Will Reacher kill him for her? No? Well, will he at least teach her how to shoot the dainty pistol she's purchased? (In the meantime, what's with that team of three professional assassins circling the ranch unbeknownst to all? Jack may discover his hands full.)
All those other Tough Guys I mentioned are smart, but not so much that they don't sporadically get beaten up and kicked silly by the Bad Guys. But not Reacher - nobody gets the drop on him. When the reader sees a violent confrontation looming, he almost feels sorry for the villains for the World of Hurt in which they'll soon find themselves. By his own admission, Jack's a hard man who likes cockroaches better than the men (and women) he's sometimes forced to exterminate.
Reacher is endlessly fascinating. Having gone from one Army post to another, first as an Army brat and then on his own as an MP officer, he's never known a permanent home. So, now he chooses to live as a near-vagrant, shunning commitment to material things and the occasional interesting woman. He travels only with testosterone and a toothbrush, buying cheap clothes to wear and discard as he goes. He's educated, intelligent and gentlemanly, but excruciatingly asocial (as opposed to antisocial, which he's not) and heroically ignorant about how a "normal" life - wife, house, mortgage, kids, dog, 9 to 5, and Lexus - is lived. This is a man whom all you single ladies out there would love the chance to improve. (Don't cave, Jack! Be a role model for the rest of us New Age men pining to be free!)
Hey, all you other Tough Guys of lore and legend, move aside and make room for a Real Man.
This is a classic Reacher novel, fun and well written. I read it on holiday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also read two of the Soft Target novels by Conrad Jones, great stories and shocking thrillers, a must for Reacher fans I couldnt put them. Try both they are great reading.
Summary of Echo Burning (Jack Reacher)Loner Jack Reacher gets a lift from seductive Carmen Greer, but it comes with a few hitches: a dangerous husband, a small town with secrets, and a plan. Now Reacher's part of it, and before the sun sets, the ride could cost Jack and Carmen their lives.
Jack Reacher is Spenser before Robert Parker domesticated his Boston PI--in fact, Reacher's even tougher than Hawk. He can inhale and exhale a few times and pump up his muscles so they make a bad character think twice about tangling with him. And he's spent enough time on the right side of the law to know how to operate in the gray zone if that's what it takes to save the fair maiden, punish the bad guys, and right any other wrongs he happens to encounter in the course of his wanderings. Echo Burning is vintage Lee Child, a smartly paced, intricately plotted, and masterfully characterized thriller starring Reacher, the ex-military cop who's so concerned about commitment to anything--a woman, possessions, a permanent address--that he only owns the clothes on his back. But he's the kind of justice-seeking guy you'd want on your side, especially if you were an abused wife trapped in a marriage you can't get out of until, and unless, somebody bumps off your old man. Reacher's sympathetic, but he's not crazy. Nonetheless, he allows himself to be drawn into beautiful Carmen Greer's orbit, which ought to teach a guy not to hitchhike. Agreeing to protect her from the husband who's about to be released from jail and, according to Carmen, who's about to pay her back for tipping off the authorities to the tax fraud that landed him in prison, Reacher moves into the bunkhouse of the Echo, Texas, ranch that's owned by the bigoted, bitter, but powerful Greer family, which despises Carmen because she's Mexican and tolerates her only because she's Sloop Greer's wife and the mother of his child. The expected bloodshed ensues, but it's Sloop, not Carmen, who ends up with a bullet in his head. Reacher's convinced that Carmen acted in self-defense, even after other evidence comes to light that suggests there's more--and less--to her unhappy tale than even her own lawyer believes. This is the best Jack Reacher yet, smart, stylish, and convincing. If it's your first encounter with Child's work, be sure to check out his backlist--Running Blind, Tripwire, etc. --Jane Adams
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