Tripwire (Jack Reacher, No. 3)
by Lee Child
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Book Reviews of Tripwire (Jack Reacher, No. 3)
Book Review: Protagonists and antagonists
Summary: 5 Stars
I read three of Child's offerings, two good, one not so I chose another. Now there are three good, one not very. If I were to do the last one justice, I would give the plot away. So I shall have to do what I can. Most novels need a protagonist and his enemy, the antagonist. Here is where Child excels, he draws a good hero, Jack Reacher and keeps him and selects the antagonists. He is very good at this, you want the hero to win and you want the bad guy to lose. He puffs up the plot and I am forced to follow it relentlessly, knowing the hero will win but wanting to see the enemy get his just deserts. Child makes me hate the bad guy, sometimes i think the conclusion is too mild, I want the bad guy to suffer more. So it was with "Tripwire", the bad guy got away too easily. Another problem here was in the subcharacters, Chester and Marilyn Stone. Sympathy is created for them, then at the end they are dropped without letting the reader know if they reclaim their lives, their business. Also Sheryl, what happens to her? Creative Writing courses say to leave some questions unanswered in the story, this creates discussion amongst the readers, asking one another what happened to so and so, keep the discussion going, get more people involved, sell more books, etc. Then there is the question of Jodi and Hook Hobie. She is small and tiny, and Hook is big and heavy, yet in the confrontation, Jodi is big enough for Hook to hide behind her body, use it as a shield and present a small target impossible to shoot so little is shown. Who believes it? The book is full of items like those two, Another thing is I was able to forecast the action and the characters, was this intentional or not? Here is where I can say little without spoiling the ending, yet the ending was no surprise. Will any other books be so good with so many mistakes and detractions? I can only keep reading and see.Book Review: A change in character for Reacher
Summary: 4 Stars
Jack Reacher is usually the man-with-no-name who rides into town, cleans out some bad apples, and slips away into the sunset. This novel, the third in the series, is a change in pace. The novel starts out with Reacher actually working, digging swimming pools by day for the exercise (he is 6 feet 4 inches tall, and has his weight up to 250 pounds) and working nights as a bouncer in a nude bar for $50 and free drinks - they usually involves sitting at the bar, watching the show, and watching the customers (hard work, but someone has to do it LOL).
Reacher's past catches up with him, and he finds himself back playing an investigative role like he did as a military cop (he was a military police major until the Army downsized). The case is initially to investigate exactly what happened to an older couple's son in Vietnam (officially listed as an MIA). The case quickly turns into something else because someone is committing murders to keep things closed. We are introduced to a vicous corporate loan shark who likes to hurt people. He will do bad things to your wife and daughters if you don't pay up.
Reacher finds himself involved with people out of his past, and it looks like he might even settle down (you know that's not going to happen if you follow the series). The villains are mean, but Reacher can be even meaner (fight fire with fire). Bodies start to pile up, with a significant amount of colateral damage.
The novel is some part mystery, some part thriller, and some part action adventure. The story contains considerable violence (including torture), some sexual content (but nothing graphic), and some language consistent with the plot. Some parts of the novel seemed a bit of a stretch, so I only gave it four stars. The back of the book has a preview of the next novel in the series, "Running Blind."
Book Review: Three and a half stars...
Summary: 3 Stars
Tripwire is the third in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. While it did keep us entertained on a long car trip, after listening to three of them in a row, they're becoming predictable.
Jack Reacher is a retired MP who has been roaming the country since leaving the service. He finds himself in the Keys working two jobs when his money starts to run low. A New York PI comes looking for Reacher and Reacher plays dumb. Later that same day, two NY thugs also show up, and Reacher decides it's time to leave Florida and head to New York City. He needs to discover who is looking for him, and why.
In NY, he teams up with Jodie Garber-Jacob, the daughter of his old CO, Leon Garber (whom we met in book two, Die Trying). They uncover a plot that involves a missing Viet Nam chopper pilot, a corporate loan-shark and lots of dead bodies. Unfortunately, Reacher and Garber are on a hit list, but they don't know whose list it is or why they're there. Their goal is the unravel the mystery without getting killed.
On the plus side, Lee Child's books are all thrillers, and Tripwire was no exception. But although I like Reacher, he a little too unbelievable. He has no ID (including a driver's license). He does not own a cellphone or a credit card. He doesn't have an address and he manages to get through each book with a change of clothes--maybe two. And in each book, he always has a love interest. But Tripwire was also good in that we learn more about Reacher's past--this time his miliary career. Child also ends Tripwire with Reacher on the verge of making some important decisions about his future. For this reason, I'm anxious to read book number four, Running Blind.
Book Review: Get real with the military references
Summary: 3 Stars
I like the character Jack Reacher, and I have read several in the series. Child, however, doesn't know a blasted thing about the American military and continues to throw out preposterous and/or inaccurate information about all the services. Some examples:
--America trains soldiers, not servants; U.S. Army corporals train and fight, they do not wash officer's laundry.
--Marines do not fly medical patients from anywhere to anywhere. They certainly don't do it while shoving Reachers guts back into his abdomen while in flight. Wounded are stabilized in-theater then flown by the air Force.
--General's don't walk around with a "thousand yard stare" nor do they wear shiny boots with formal dress uniforms and click their heels every chance they get.
--Officers and enlisted at all levels did not just sit around wondering what to do after the cold war was over.
--Our troops can live in tents, barracks, hooches or a slit trench. Not in "bunkhouses." Cowboys, maybe, soldiers never.
--Service assignments don't routinely transfer our military from an Army base to a Marine base and back again in a matter of months.
--Dependant children don't change schools three and four times a school year.
And on and on. Mr. Child really needs a former career military person to correct his assumptions.
Signed, A former career man with 25 years combined Army and Air Force service and an additional 16 years as a DoD civilian.
Book Review: Not Lee Child At His Best
Summary: 4 Stars
This was my third read of the Jack Reacher series. Previously, I have read Killing Floor And The Enemy. Both of which to me seemed to move better. This book had a fair amount of straight ahead action. But tended to bog down. Particularly, to me, in the romantic scenes with Jodie Garber, now a prominent lawyer and daughter of Reacher's former commanding officer when Reacher was in the military. Jodie had a crush on Reacher when she was a teenager and in this book he reciprocated. The most interesting character seemed to be Carl Allen who was a criminal while in the military during the Vietnam war. He managed to escape a helicopter crash with horrible disfiguring injuries and assume the identity of one of the other crash victims. After physically recovering he continued his criminal activities of shylock lending in the U.S. Reacher, who's been a drifter since leaving the military was working in Florida digging swimming pools when he became involved in the case due to the fact his former c.o. Leon Garber had become involved because the elderly parents of one of the helicopter crash victims wanted closure so that they could know whether their soon was in fact dead or missing in action. So, even if this wasn't Child at his best. It's still a good worthwhile read.