Without Fail (Jack Reacher, No. 6)
by Lee Child
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Book Reviews of Without Fail (Jack Reacher, No. 6)
Book Review: It's Jack Reacher....Need I Say More?
Summary: 5 Stars
If you love the Jack Reacher series, just fricking buy this book already! It's awesome. If you DON'T know Jack, then get to know him, because you will love him!
"Jack Reacher" is a blunt force--solid, sexy, smart. He gets in, gets it done, then gets out within days. You'll be on the edge of your seat every time you read one of these books!
Lee Child is not a literary genius--but he is an amazing story-teller. I am a writer's writer and I usually stick to biographies and fiction by Auster and the like. I like intellectual stimulation. I don't like sentences beginning with "And". Also, I'm American, so reading about an American character who lives in the USA but says that people are "called" (an obviously British reference, which Child is) instead of "named" (whatever their name is) bugged me at first. I pushed past it because the stories are so riveting. What an escape these books are! Lee Child won't make you laugh, but he'll give you a case of perma-grin, and you'll learn all sorts of wickedly cool factual information about reconn, artillery and hand to hand combat. You'll feel like an insider with an edge--as if you could do it all yourself. Hey--I'm a house wife in my 40s and I feel like I could command a 4 a.m. mission myself! (Use the element of surprise and shoot the weakest guy last--and make my glock a 19 because I'm smaller)
I love Jack Reacher!
Book Review: Partial Fail
Summary: 3 Stars
I love Jack Reacher stories, but I have to call this one my least favorite. Too many factual implausibilities and not nearly enough action.
First of all (spoiler warning), we have the Secret Service doing its utmost to protect the Vice President-elect, yet in the face of a direct threat, when he goes to speak in a churchyard the Service doesn't bother to check for a sniper in the steeple! Then later on at the same church, facing the same threat, this time knowing that the steeple contained a sniper just a week or two ago, they fail again to check the steeple. Absurd! The Service must not appreciate being portrayed as that dumb.
Second, Reacher's best quality is his cool, ruthless violence in the face of overwhelming odds. Yet in this book he gets into only two direct confrontations as best as I recall; one in the first chapter and the other in the last. The whole rest of the book is devoted to indirect plot development.
Third, Reacher is best working alone, but here he has two partners and teams up with both the Service and the FBI. He's never a fugitive, never hunted, never even really threatened. He just doesn't shine without those elements of danger.
So no, this isn't Reacher at his best. It's not a bad book, but far from the greatest.
Book Review: How do you keep the most powerful people in the world alive?
Summary: 5 Stars
How do you keep the most powerful people in the world alive? Not only is this a daunting task, it may be impossible. Lee Child's WITHOUT FAIL takes character Jack Reacher to his most challenging task yet - keeping the vice president alive. However, in true Jack Reacher fashion, this isn't about protection, it's about offense--find the killers before they are successful.
Child does a masterful job at taking us into the secret service and the issues, concerns, and challenges faced by an agency with an impossible task. A task they perform day in and day out successfully. After reading this novel, you will have a greater appreciation for just how successful the real secret service is.
While the premise alone is enough to carry this face paced novel forward, the exploration of Reacher's character provides a compelling depth to this novel. At times Reacher seems almost super human with his confidence and ability to anticipate exactly what the bad guys might do. But it is his relationship with M.E. Froelich, a secret service agent whose previous romantic involvement with Reacher's dead brother, provides the ever so subtle glimpses into his otherwise stoic persona.
WIHTOUT FAIL is a wonderful thriller that will keep you reading well into the night.
Book Review: Good, But Not Child's Best
Summary: 3 Stars
Lee Child's super investigator, Jack Reacher, is a pretty resoursful guy; to say the least. However, since he doesn't have his own credit cards, he must reley on a super female cop type to help him move about the country. I might say that she performs other duties as well in her role as investigator helper. As the book progresses, one wonders if this team will end up in a romantic situation. The pair team up initally to find holes in the newly elected vice predident's security. Oh, but there is an ulterior motive in that their employer, the Secret Service, wants to see just how good or bad their security proceedures are. They find out fast. Then Reacher and company tackle the job of figuring out who the bad guys are as they try to read "between the lines" of various threatening letters. The plot thickens and as other murders take place, the reader wonders just who are the bad guys. I wouldn't call this book mesmerizing and the suspense does not become "unbearable"; as some might want the reader to believe. However, it is a pretty good tale. My only real criticism is that the book dragged out to 549 pages. The writer could have accomplished this story in quite a few less pages. The last 26 pages were fast moving and I really enjoyed this part of the book.Book Review: Too Many Words
Summary: 3 Stars
My copy of this book has 549 pages. In it is a good 350-page book struggling to escape.
I like the character Jack Reacher. Child has studied the American loner-hero and taken that concept to the nth degree: A wanderer with a bank account but no permanent possessions except for--of course--deadly skills and a deeply ingrained ethic of right and wrong. Travis McGee but more so. (No better model for a series character than McGee.)
Jack Reacher needs a Sig-Sauer P226, but he could use a good editor even more. The author is never content to use one word of description or one sentence when several will do. Re-plowing the same narrative ground, phrase-by-phrase, sentence-by-sentence, defeats momentum. A book that ideally should be tight and driven becomes bloated and talky. Thus is the lean and hard Reacher trapped in a sumo wrestler costume of narrative.
I've read that some of the Reacher novels are written in the first person. This is third person. I think it would have been crisper told strictly from Reacher's point of view. By narrating in the first person, you lose scope but gain intimacy. This novel could benefit from the loss of scope, and the reader would gain from a more personal attachment to the character.