Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, No. 1)
by Lee Child
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Book Reviews of Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, No. 1)
Book Review: Semblance of truth? Well, no.
Summary: 2 Stars
Any decent mystery/adventure/thriller needs to follow Coleridge's dictum to achieve a "willing suspension of disbelief", i.e it must have a semblance of truth. Otherwise instead of being drawn into the story and characters your mind is just jammed with a repeating WTFs. I started reading the recent Reacher novels last year and I'm just now getting to the earlier ones. This starts off with the murder of a high level Secret Service official and there is no Federal response. None. Later, another one is killed and still no official FBI or Treasury Dept. action. Plus the Feds know unofficially that the local police dept. has been compromised. What FBI help is given must be covert so leadership doesn't know. WTF? While it wouldn't happen in the real-world, Reacher could have been working with a high level SS or FBI team who were using him for extra-legal activities to avenge their fallen comrades; yes a stretch, but the idea that there'd be no response at all is ludicrous. When a federal LE official goes down it's all hands on deck. The Reacher books are fantastical and I accept that and have enjoyed them up to now.Book Review: Homage to all things Reacher
Summary: 3 Stars
In honor of Jack Reacher, I have left my family, sold my worldly possessions, and quit my job. I am now aimlessly wondering the lower 48. And who knows, I may end up in Alaska living off the fat of the land, or Hawaii working as the body guard to a physician who specializes in controversial, yet legal, medical procedures. That is, if my ever dwindling money roll allows for trans-oceanic travel.
I digress. My point is that while it is entertaining and enjoyable, Killing Floor lacks the versimilitude that some of Child's other novels subtly incorporate. I would also submit that it is short on the ingredient that arguably made this series, i.e. action. And I found some of the detail trivial and meaningless, while several of the action sequences lacked the detail that I found so enjoyable in, for instance, Worth Dying For.
This is the fifth of the Reacher series that I have read. Each of the books have been entertaining, however, I am still looking for the same rush that I felt while rapidly consuming the aforementioned Worth Dying For.
Book Review: Lee Child's "Killing Floor"
Summary: 3 Stars
I had read "Persuader' and felt I needed to read the books in order so I read the first novel. It is a fast-paced novel with a tough guy protagonist as hero and it maintains interest with its action packed sequences and killings. Reacher is a dirty fighter but he kept me wanting him to win ar all costs and in any way. Child did it and it was good, even in the sequences in which Reacher would seem to have no chance but still he would win. At least he did not have to depend on coincidences as so many other authors use, Child avoids them handily. The problem I had with "Killing Floor" was in having the antagonists know who was about to give information about them they would know not only who, but to whom, where and when it would occur but Child does not tell how they got this information. Sometimes it can be guessed at but sometimes, too many times,it cannot and I lose track of what's going on while I try to determine how the enemy knows who, what, where and when. This is novel one, "Persuaders" is better and I hope as I read the later works the problem disappears.Book Review: FLOORED ME!
Summary: 4 Stars
Having read the newest of Lee Child's i.e. Bad Luck and Trouble, I decided to begin all over again and get reacquainted with Reacher from the first. Killing Floor is in the first person. You get to hear Jack's every thought and emotion. He is certainly not the most literate of men, but his intentions are honorable.
After finding out the initial corpse was his brother, Joe (and it hits you between the eyes)Jack gets down to business to solve the Town of Margrave's enigma.
It is a fun ride. The money laundering scheme is plausible but at the same time preposterous. Hey, it could happen. Lee Childs sometimes goes over the top and you just have to trust in a great ride of an adventure. One of the reasons I read Lee Childs is to find out how Reacher uses his brain and brawn to get out of tense situations. I dont care how he does it; I am on his side!!!!
As Jack fades into the sunset at the end of the book, your heart goes with him and you want to search out the next installment.
Book Review: Fast-paced read...Intense...Graphic...Brilliant!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was intense! Jack Reacher is arrested in a small town for a murder he didn't commit. Another man confesses to the murder although he is innocent and a police officer drove him home from a party at the time the murder took place. Both men are put in jail for the weekend in what the jail guards tell him is the sixth floor. However, they realize in the morning that they are on the floor with the convicts in FOR LIFE. The cell doors open and they are fresh meat! I don't want to give the whole plot away, but the small town Jack Reacher ended up in is corrupt. He has to solve the murder.. no,murders and the why behind those murders to clear his name, avenge a family member's death, rescue innocent lives, and sock it to the bad guys. The ending of the book is brilliant! Jack Reacher is smart, eccentric, intuitive, strong, and knows exactly where to hit someone to bring them down or kill them. If this was a movie it would probably be rated R. This book is not for the faint of heart. I loved it!