Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, No. 1)
by Lee Child
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Book Reviews of Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, No. 1)
Book Review: Vastly overwritten - losing me
Summary: 2 Stars
OK... Lee Child was recommended to me by someone with whom I usually agree with on mystery novels. Great authors like Robert Parker, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, etc... So I was happy to have Child and Jack Reacher suggested to me, especially with several books already written to carry me through the next releases by other top authors.
The Killing Floor started out pretty good and had me hooked. But then Child lost it and while I'm about 5/8ths finished with the book, it's getting harder and harder to pick up. I like the story overall and will finish the book... but...
Child overwrites way too much. He does not know when to leave the scene, letting things go on way too long. He repeats himself quite a bit. Since the story is first person, I don't mind the "thought process" style of writing, but Reacher's (Retcher?) thought process belies his tough guy image. Parker shows how a tough guy can still be sensitive and maintain deep emotional connections to characters, but Reacher is really "reaching" when it comes to getting out of the shallow end of his.
This story, as I said, is interesting. And I forgive the relative inaccuracies of the Atlanta area (my town), but boy... the coincidences stack up and up and the general unbelievability of the scenarios and consequences of such is just too much. There are also a lot of convenient incidences and reactions (or lack of action) that cause the story to not unfold naturally, but follow the course Child wants it to.
Of note: a Keystone Kops type scene at the Atlanta Airport that results in the convenient death of a character. Any thought at all and this could have been made exciting and more realistic.
Also Reacher feels he made a mistake in analysis of another character's situation (cool to be not 100% right, like that!), but then due to even worse analysis he keeps declaring a character dead -- and I'm still not sure he is, but there is no reason for Reacher to have that solid a conclusion at all.
Reacher is also frustrated when people die before they can tell him "who they are working for", etc... but then when he gets the drop on a couple of guys tailing him, he responds (under total concealment), by blowing them away rather than trying to interrogate them. Under barely any immediate threat, he choose to just backshoot them. No honor, no fair fight, no attempt to wound and subdue. Just blow them away. But hey, anything to make the plot drag out, right?
Finally, when Reacher discovers he's in possession of some counterfeit money... he decides to continue to use it to buy materials and pay expenses. Former miliary cop??? Good guy??? Spreading phony money and setting up innocent shopkeepers for potential trouble? I don't think so at all.
Oh well... long review and like I said, I'll muddle through to the end. But like Vince Flynn and other "hot" authors who really cannot write well, Lee Child is going to go on the very back burner for some time.
Book Review: A page turner with flaws
Summary: 3 Stars
I confess that this book had me interested from page 1, the gimicky short sentances worked for the narration of Jack Reacher, drifter and superhero.
The story moved action movie fast, (the final battle certainly has John Woo slo-mo gunfight written all over it) and partly that helps distract from the terrible plot holes and contrived meetings and coincidences that drive nearly all the main events. If this had happened in any other town but Margrave, Georgia, Jack Reacher would still be in prison, not starring in further novels.
As an former military policeman, given training no other MP on earth has ever recieved he wanders into a web of murders and conspiracy just as it starts to unravel, and by sheer blind luck manages to win through.
Coincidence as primary plot device is seldome satisfactory, but its here in abundance. The good guys make all the right guesses (including the absurd guess of the alias and hotel one character was staying at, just by knowing the characters music tastes...) and the bad guys, despite being ruthless killers make all the wrong ones. Things just "fall into place" a little to readily here.
Somehow, Reacher, a drifter and primary suspect in the first murder of the book wins over the cheif of Detectives and can get away with killing and stashing bodies all over the place, vigilante style, and the two good cops (one he is sleeping with a scant few hours after they meet) could care less, he's only killing bad guys. He's not deputised or anything, and just because he doesn't have a criminal record they give him a tacit "007 licence to kill" and be involved in every step of the investigation, civil liberties be damned. Of course the number of people who survive to go to trial is...well that would spoil it.
I am a former Military Policeman with a spotless criminal record, and I am reasonably certain that a double digit body count even in the smallest town in the south, howerver well deserved and motivated, would get me in trouble.
None of the townspeople on the take EVER call their family and tell them to move to Margrave to get free money? Big crime coverups on this scale never work, and one this blatant certainly would have come apart sooner.
One or two elements, fine, but when you add it all up and then toss in Jack Reacher as the ONLY person who manages to figure anything out (MP work rarely reaches the level of investigation that the Boston PD Detective would have seen, so his sheer efficiency is a little out of place) the whole thing turns out to be reposterous, but still a lot of fun.
Book Review: A strong beginning novel for the Jack Reacher series.
Summary: 4 Stars
Margrave, Georgia, was the perfect place for Jack Reacher to wind up in when he left the Greyhound bus before it reached Atlanta. Perfect houses, perfect landscaping, perfect road paving, perfect sidewalks, perfect stores. Except that nobody ever seemed to be shopping in any of the stores. And almost nobody was ever eating in the restaurant. The town even has a perfect police station as Jack finds when he is arrested for murder after only being in the town for several hours. Reacher is one of those true vagabonds of the road; no car, no ID, no luggage, no family, no job, no good reason to be where he is. All of which is extremely suspicious to the police when they have their first homicide in 30 years take place and he is the only stranger in town.
This is my first time reading any of the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That phrase "I couldn't put it down" is such a cliche that I always hesitate to use it, but in this instance nothing else will do. I actually resented having to stop reading the book in order to attend a party, I would have liked to just stay home and read. I found the book to be very fast paced and exceedingly interesting. This author began to stip away one layer after another to show just how imperfect this little off-the-beaten-track town was. The relationships which Reacher formed with Roscoe (a female officer) and Findlay (the Chief of Detectives) were very believable especially given that so many things were happening so quickly that instant decisions had to be made about who to trust.
"Killing Floor", published in 1997, is jam packed with action from beginning to end. It also has some gruesome descriptions of killings which took place so, if that bothers you, this book would definitely not be to your liking. I found that the level of brutality was necessary to underscore just how "bad" these bad guys truly were. The background information regarding Reacher's childhood was also of interest to me since I also am an Army brat and his childhood mirrored my own very closely. Another coincidence which was interesting is that I know that particular area of Georgia very well. Both of those things added to the atmosphere of authenticity of this book and made me feel as if this author was telling me his story directly. I look for that feeling when I am reading and I'm hoping the remainder of the Jack Reacher series will live up to this exciting beginning.
Book Review: Much to Recommend Despite the Flaws
Summary: 3 Stars
While on a cruise recently I started talking books and authors (especially mysteries) with an Englishwoman who I met one day at the breakfast table. When I mentioned I am a Michael Connelly fan, she suggested Lee Childs. Having heard his name before, I gave him a try. Always on the lookout for a new series, I picked The Killing Floor, the first installment of the Jack Reacher books.
Having finished this book, I am impressed with Lee Childs' writing ability potential. It hits the ground running with Jack Reacher, a military police officer, who recently left the service to wander about the country in a hobo-like existence. When a brutal murder is committed in a small Southern town, Reacher finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, hauled into the police station, and then thrown into jail despite what (as the reader knows) his obvious innocence. Things are harrowing there for a while, but he does get out and then puts his experience into action as he joins in on the investigation, finds a romantic interest too and continues his adventures. Jack Reacher is a very unique, interesting, and promising character with a macho, loner, wise-guy, and cerebral persona that always does well in the mystery genre. Terrible things are happening in this town and who is on the good or bad side keeps the reader guessing.
At this point, Childs was off to a great start and I was excited to have found a winner. Unfortunately, this five-star setup does not live up to its promise. As many others reviews have stated, The Killing Floor is full of plot holes, situations, relationships that are not credible, and incomplete character development. These flaws multiply and accelerate as the plot moves on to its conclusion and I felt as if I was being led by the nose and manipulated. However, my time with The Killing Floor was not wasted. Despite all my criticism, I did enjoy it and intend to read the next installment of the Jack Reacher series. Although full of annoyances, The Killing Floor has a spark that may turn into a great series for me. This review has gone on far longer than I originally intended and I find it difficult to find concluding words. I will simply leave it by stating that The Killing Floor was a book that I could not stop enjoying despite its many flaws.
Book Review: Classic Child, Vintage Reacher
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been a big Lee Child fan, but if you're like me, following a few recent outings ranging from the mediocre ("Bad Luck and Trouble") to the abysmal ("Nothing to Lose"), you may be asking: "Is Child losing his edge, or have my standards changed that much?" So to find out, I went back and re-read Child's first Jack Reacher carnival of violence, "Killing Floor", originally published in 1997. My conclusion: it is Child who has changed: "Killing Floor", even when read the second time, is an adrenaline-charged escapist romp of mayhem balanced with suspense and mystery, a larger-than-life drama that while wholly unbelievable is nonetheless addictive and enjoyable.
With homage due to David Morrell's contemporary classic "First Blood", Jack Reacher, former Army MP Major and current drifter, is arrested over a cup of coffee while passing through backwater Margrave, Georgia. Triggering unavoidable images of Stallone's Rambo, Reacher is accused of murder, and hauled in by the local sheriff's deputies on way to the state penitentiary's holding cells for the weekend. His incarceration is brief but hardly uneventful, and soon Reacher finds real motivation to stick around and help solve the murder for which he was originally charged.
Reacher's stoic loaner is the classic American icon - conjuring images from the Marlborough Man to Batman to the adventurous nomads who rode the rails without strings or responsibilities. With Rambo's command of martial arts and weaponry of all kinds and Sherlock Holmes-class power of deductive reasoning, Reacher thinks and slugs and gouges and shoots his way to resolution and redemption. Child sets his story and his hero well above the fray with lean and crisp prose, embellished but not unencumbered by liberal doses on fact and trivia on wide ranges of topics, Child's research adding authenticity and credibility to a tale of greed and corruption the would otherwise be tired fare.
In short, if you don't think too hard about coincidence and implausibility, "Killing Floor" is the literary equivalent of eye candy - a boisterous, no-holds-barred thriller that stands alone in pop crime fiction. Leads one to wonder if Lee Child shouldn't go back and get reacquainted with the original Jack Reacher as well.