Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher, No. 12)
by Lee Child
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Book Reviews of Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher, No. 12)
Book Review: Nothing to Lose, except all you loyal readers
Summary: 1 Stars
I am a serious "Reacher" fan and I've read all the other books. Up until this point I would automatically pre-order the newest edition, but never again. After reading "Nothing to Lose", I felt totally ripped off. I wanted to take this book back and demand a refund. I wish that I had looked at these reviews before buying this book. I will not even check one out again from the library until I have read the Amazon reviews first. Lee Child totally slaughtered the Reacher character in this book to the point that I don't think I can ever have any respect for him again.
This book is really an anti-military, anti-establishment, anti-war, anti-Christian, rant wrapped up in the guise of a Reacher novel. After the first 30 pages it just felt wrong, and the more I read the more I felt that this book could not have been written by the same author. Reacher who has certainly been proud of his military background up until this point, does an about-face and is now putting down all wars after WWII, encouraging military deserters, and bashing the establishment. At the same time he is doing all of this he gives an "Honor, God, and Country" speech to a slack VA worker. It is like Reacher's evil twin psychotic brother has come to life.
In order to bash everything that Child wanted to bash in this book, he had to create a very unbelievable story where you have an entire town under the total control of a crazy, rich, religious zealot who thinks he can bring about the rapture by blowing up an American city with the world's largest dirty bomb. In this same town there is also a fraction of liberal anti-war types who are operating the world's largest under-ground railroad for military deserters to get them to Canada. If this wasn't bad enough, Child has to make Reacher's side-kick in this story the wife of a critically wounded veteran who tried to get her husband to desert before he was blown up by a road-side bomb in Iraq. It is just too much!!
Reacher spends his time having philosophical discussions, and walking back and forth into this weird town beating up guys and walking back out. The millionaire religious fanatic who is building the world's largest dirty bomb can only come up with a couple of old guys with a wrench for security. Reacher has no trouble beating them to a pulp without getting a scratch. Sometimes he takes them on 6 at a time. This is a Colorado town and nobody has a gun??? By the end of the book it is not surprising that this totally psychotic Reacher carefully checks the old guys he has just beat up to make sure they are OK then blows them to hell with their own dirty bomb. He doesn't seem to care that radioactive debris is raining down on the nearby town, highway, and military post. Give me a break!
The writing was so bad in this book, that I keep waiting to hear that it was really written by one of Child's assistants or that Child was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Please skip this book or you will never be able to look at the Reacher character seriously again. I hated to give this book a 1 star ratinng, but that was the lowest available.
Nothing to Lose, except this and many other readers. Lee Child owes his fans an apology for this mess.
Book Review: An inaccurate letdown
Summary: 1 Stars
I've read all of the other Jack Reacher books over the past couple of years, and this one is different from all the others. It is like someone else wrote the book, Reacher acts completely different than he has before. There are a ton of plot holes in this book, I'll give a few examples.
First, everyone in the town of Despair are morons. Reacher comes and goes breaks into buildings, burns down the police station and beats up at least 20 people in full view of everyone. So why don't they just call the state police on him? All they have to say was that he beat up the towns only deputy and need back up. There problem solved Reachers in jail for the next 5-10 years.
Second, you find out all the missing guys in the book are army deserters who are smuggled out of the united states to avoid going back to Iraq. To do this they hide out in a "hidden compartment" in a semi-truck. Why didn't they just drive accrossed the boarder? They wouldn't be stopped if they just went acrossed in their car and said they were going on vacation. If they were to sneak over why would they get into this hidden compartment a few hundered miles away from the boarder? Why not get in 5 mins from the board then get out 5 mins after not spend a day in a tiny compartment?
Third, The MP base. Why would the army put a base to keep track of the Uranium but not have someone at the metal plant to oversee it? What were they suppose to do on the road? They didn't search any trucks leaving so saddam hussein himself could have driven a truck to the plant picked up all the uranium and driven out, the MPs just sat in their base and every month had the plant manager send them a letter telling them how much was in there.
Fourth what is with Reacher, He spends the first half of the book a few parts per million of TCE in Hopes drinking water but then dedonates a dirty bomb 1 town over?
Finally it takes about 20 seconds to look up tank losses in Iraq which means the truth is we have lost very few tanks and even fewer people in the tanks. No tanks were lost during the entire invasion part of the war and only 80 tanks have been taken out of action by enemy fire. These fires which burn the people inside of the tanks to ash dont happen, an IED would only knock a tread off the tank and leave the people inside fine. The M1A1 is the safest tank in the world, the tanks that were taken out of action were because of the treads being knock off or the engines being hit, which means everyone inside was fine.
This book is not like any other Reacher book, in most people ask him for help and he is finally talked into it but here nobody wants his help but he sticks around looking for any reason continue beating people up and breaking down doors.
This book had way to many fist fights in them and they got so boring after a while because they were all the same, "5 guys jumped Reacher he beats them all then makes snide comments after" nobody ever pulls a gun and only one pulled a knife even the cops he beats up. The ending is the worst ever, it's like he got to the last chapter and was like "o no i have to wrap this up in 5 mins and came up with the worst ending ever.
Book Review: A very disappointing failure; muddled, confused, and unengaging
Summary: 1 Stars
I've been a Child/Reacher fan throughout the series, but in this unfortunate effort Child stumbles badly.
Briefly, while hitchhiking through Colorado, Reacher finds himself thrown out of the town of Despair for reasons he can't fathom. Naturally this gets his back up, and he decides to make the point that he can't be thrown out of ANY town.
Just like in David Morrell's seminal Rambo novel "First Blood".
Along the way he has an affair with a cop from the neighboring town of Hope; uncovers a couple of conspiracies revolving around the Iraq war, Christian fundamentalists, and Army deserters; and basically tears up the scenery.
Reacher has always been an existential, somewhat nihilistic, central character. But there were certain cornerstones of his character that were fundamental and appealing. An inviolate sense of justice, and a willingness to go to any lengths to help an oppressed underdog.
None of that pertains in this novel, which serves more as a soapbox from which Child preaches his own political views, views which seem to conflict with those we've come to associate with Reacher himself. In this book, Reacher -- himself a former career Army MP officer -- has suddenly become anti-military and anti-war. Jangling and disconcerting, to say the least.
Further, there's no clarity to the story itself. The people of the town of Despair act in unbelievable concert, and their motivation for doing so is never explained in the book. They're almost like the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead".
The twin towns of Hope and Despair seem to exist in a void in the landscape, isolated physically and -- apparently -- functionally from the rest of the state. The few residents of Hope whom we meet in the book all seem to know something bad is going on in Despair, but no one -- including the cops -- does anything about it. Not the cops, not the people; no one even bothers to notify the state authorities, evidently. It's as if this little part of Colorado exists in a vacuum. Very Twilight Zone.
As far as execution, there's a lot of Reacher going back and forth between Hope and Despair -- how metaphorical, I'm sure -- and it's boring, frankly. Further, the "science" of some of the aspects of the book is just plain wrong, as is Child's description of some aspects of US Army organization -- a flaw you'd think Child would be able to avoid with a little basic research, which you'd think he'd have done if his central character's an ex-Army officer.
The success of the Reacher novels in the past has been somewhat formulaic, but it's an appealing formula: Reacher stumbles onto a situation in which an innocent is being victimized by an evil person. They're stories about justice ultimately prevailing, but they're also, at their core, small stories. This is appropriate and believable for a Lone Ranger-type figure like Jack Reacher.
In this book Child is trying to have Reacher take on an entire system, and it doesn't wash at all. A bad case of over-Reaching (sorry; I couldn't help myself).
Book Review: I hope this isn't the start of a trend...
Summary: 3 Stars
Five days off, and the latest Lee Child book arrives at the library... Nothing To Lose. Normally, this is a recipe for a great time. This time, it seemed to be a bit off. While I liked the return to current times with the Jack Reacher character, the plot on this episode seemed to stretch out a bit too long. I was also less than enthralled with the subplot of missing persons, especially given the way Child chooses to have Reacher react to it.
Reacher's on the road again, traveling (on a whim) from Maine to California with just the clothes on his back, a passport, an ATM card, and a toothbrush. He ends up in a town in Colorado called Hope, and from there it's only 17 miles to another town called Despair. He can't resist the urge to check out the place, so he starts walking. When he gets into town and tries to order a cup of coffee in the diner, it's made quite clear to him that strangers are not welcome. Telling Reacher he can't do something is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and he refuses to leave. This leads to one busted up local deputy and Reacher in jail for vagrancy. They take him back to the boundary between Despair and Hope, and dump him off. The police officer of Hope, a pretty woman by the name of Vaughn, meets him there and attempts to reason with him to just come back to Hope and ignore Despair. But Reacher can't let it alone, and he's determined to find out why they were so determined to get rid of him. He learns that Despair is a metal recycling company town completely owned by a single person, and Reacher figures he's got something to hide if the entire town is afraid of anyone showing up. It also doesn't help Reacher's curiosity when he finds a military Forward Operating Base guarding one of the roads into Despair. Things aren't adding up for Reacher, and he has no better thing to be doing than to uncover the secrets of Despair.
On the whole, I did enjoy the return of Reacher to his post-military, drifter ways. I'm glad that Child chose to retreat from the military flashback detour, and stay with the character that I've come to expect. Reacher's attitude, dialog, and ability to wreck havoc in personal confrontations is all there in Nothing To Lose. It's just the plot that seems to drag. There's a pair of plots involving what may be going on at the recycling plant, as well as people who seem to have disappeared after showing up in Despair. The real purpose of the recycling plant doesn't show up until the end, nor does the reason for the missing persons. Once Reacher *does* discover the reasons for both, he goes off on a political rant that seems rather out of character. It also places him directly at odds with Vaughn, given the personal circumstances she's dealing with. While it isn't quite a "soapbox" novel where the entire plot is designed to support the author's personal crusade, the end sure smacked of it.
Nothing To Lose isn't horrible, nor is it such that I'll be less inclined to get Child's next Reacher novel as soon as I can. But I certainly hope that this is not the start of a trend...
Book Review: Everything to Lose, Lee
Summary: 2 Stars
Holy conspiracy theories, Batman! Did somebody take James Lee Burke and tuck his liberal rants between the covers of a Lee Child novel?
Don't get me wrong - Burke and Child are two of my favorite authors - but the venerable Burke started a fast descent when his politics began to irrationally overpower the gripping atmospheric prose of the Mississippi delta and Dave Robicheaux's hard-hitting tales of southern noir. But if one were to judge Child solely on the basis of "Nothing to Lose", they might conclude that that he is already well down that slippery slope. Which would be a true disservice to the author and his readers.
So this starts out as the vintage Lee Child/Jack Reacher thrill fest, with the stoic loaner Reacher alone on a desolate highway separating the fictitious and allegorically named Colorado towns of Hope and Despair. Borrowing heavily from Stallone's "First Blood" - and even a bit from Stephen King's eerie "Desperation" - Reacher wants nothing more than a cup of coffee while passing through Despair. Instead, he finds himself first ignored and then in jail for vagrancy. With a provocative and mysterious prologue, and Reacher's first fist fight by page fifteen, all the pieces were quickly falling into place for a classic Child/Reacher escape to fast action and delicious revenge. The mystery of the Despair deepened, a company town supported by a massive metal recycling plant and controlled Waco-like by the omnipresent "Mr. Thurman". And keeping with his trusted and successful formula, Child provides Reacher's love interest in the form of "Vaughan", a patrolman of neighboring Hope.
But a promising start begins to fray around the edges a hundred-or-so pages in, and, by halfway through, has literally lost all "Hope". Repeated encounters between Reacher and Thurman and his thugs become tedious - even boring, unheard of in Child's pages - as the plot meanders and stumbles through incongruities and inconsistencies alien to Child's usually credible plot lines and meticulous research. But in this installment, while Child can still add depth and interest to a story with minutia ranging from the perfect cup of coffee to the physics of a cell phone call, he is inexcusably sloppy in tying together his central theme. Unlike the smart, lean, and unencumbered prose we've been conditioned to expect, "Nothing to Lose" reads with all the clarity and efficiency you'd expect in a "Code Pink" manifesto.
It's a shame, really. Lee Child is arguably the standard in contemporary thriller/action fiction, and Jack Reacher is, as so well said by the Chicago Sun-Times, "...the perfect hero, loved by women, feared by men, respected by all." But not this time. Let's just hope that this episode's muddled and confused Reacher is an aberration, and that next year's entry will return to the straightforward thrills of "Persuader", "Tripwire", or "Killing Floor", rather than following James Lee Burke down a path that will not only cost him a loyal fan base, but also tarnish the great writing that justifiably has earned their fealty.