Rating: 
Summary: YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED !
Review: A great follow-up to Numbered Account and yet a completely different book. Chris Reich has proven himself to be a master of historical detail in a work of fiction. I read it in one day !
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling From Start To Finish........
Review: After reading "Numbered Account", which was one of the most thrilling fiction novels I've read in many years, I wondered why Reich would switch from a financial thriller to a WWII plot. Nonetheless I had to buy the book, and I was far from disappointed. Christopher Reich has a knack for writing novels that keep you enthralled from start to finish. Not only was this book exciting it was also a small lesson in history with a most stunning and thought provoking ending. It was one of those books that I wished would not end. I can strongly recommend this as a wonderful read!
Rating: 
Summary: Good reading
Review: Amazed how historicaly and geographically accurate this author is. You would expect that he lived in Germany for years and privately new the main characters met in the novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Yarn - Bad Editing
Review: An interesting story. Mediocre writing style. Terrible editing. Historical facts, geography errors, and anachronisms take away from an otherwise ineteresting plot. This author needs to check his facts, even if his book is fiction. A Nelson DeMille he's not.
Rating:
Summary: Run for it!!!
Review: An unbelievably well laid out book that is fun to read and hard to put down.All the hallmarks of a potential movie to be made. The story gives us an insight to an almost forgotten era- the immediate post European war months, before the fall of Japan. Based on a cat and mouse chase accross ravaged Germany by a former NY detective (now army major) who is after Germany's Olympic hero (now a SS war criminal), Reich's idea of using the simmering tension of the Potsdam conference and the mutual distrust of UK/US - USSR scenario is a good one. We must remember that the opinion of the time was a new war with Stalin could break out within minutes and as we all know, the Allies had the hot headed generals that would have gladly used the still intact bloated Allied army and a rearmed German Army to execute the plan. So General Patton is used as the lynch pin in this whole affair, which as it is known, held very extremist views on life and his well known death in a road accident is given that twist historians have theorised all along. Enough spoiling...Read.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting but flawed
Review: As much as I love both the unusual setting (post-war Germany) and the thrilling tension throughout the book, the multitude of inexcusable mistakes spoiled the enjoyment of this novel somewhat, at least for for me. Even though as a native German speaker I usually couldn't care less whenever international authors use the odd foreign language phrase incorrectly, Mr. Reich (who's presumably spent a few years in Switzerland) does not get a single German phrase right in this book; sometimes it's so bad that the remarks don't even make sense. Sorry, but this gets really annoying once you're past page 100 or so. On top of that, there are some pretty strange factual errors as well, mainly of geographical nature that could've been avoided by simply checking a cheap map. Other than that, "The Runner" is a good thriller, comparable to "The Needle" by British author Ken Follett (who is a much better researcher, though). Next time Mr. Reich should hand his novel over to an editor who knows his business if he intends to venture out into a foreign setting again.
Rating:
Summary: Fast and sleek
Review: Christopher Reich has written a sleek, high-octane thriller with a wonderful historical backdrop. Unfolding amidst the shattered ruins of Europe in the immediate wake of World War II, "The Runner" tells the story of Devlin Judge, an American lawyer working the Nuremberg trial who goes on a vendetta to hunt down the escaped Nazi war criminal who murdered his brother. Judge's personal quest is just part of the story as he gradually unravels a sinister plot that will undoubtedly plunge the world into a third global conflict. Some of history's biggest players make an appearance in the book: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. General George S. Patton is a central figure in the story... and a shady one at that. The pace is steady and the narrartive solid. In the tradition of "Numbered Account," Reich has penned a "thinking man's" thriller. His protagonists are real people; not action hero cardboard cutouts. Reich is proving himself a suspense writer of the top order.
Rating:
Summary: Fast and sleek
Review: Christopher Reich has written a sleek, high-octane thriller with a wonderful historical backdrop. Unfolding amidst the shattered ruins of Europe in the immediate wake of World War II, "The Runner" tells the story of Devlin Judge, an American lawyer working the Nuremberg trial who goes on a vendetta to hunt down the escaped Nazi war criminal who murdered his brother. Judge's personal quest is just part of the story as he gradually unravels a sinister plot that will undoubtedly plunge the world into a third global conflict. Some of history's biggest players make an appearance in the book: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. General George S. Patton is a central figure in the story... and a shady one at that. The pace is steady and the narrartive solid. In the tradition of "Numbered Account," Reich has penned a "thinking man's" thriller. His protagonists are real people; not action hero cardboard cutouts. Reich is proving himself a suspense writer of the top order.
Rating:
Summary: Flat out - A Great Read!!!
Review: Danial Silva did this kind of novel well - a World War II piece where we know the outcome from reading history, but not how it came about...the nitty gritty...the dirty little secrets. Christopher Reich takes it to the same level with this effort. By the time the central character in the book, Devlin Judge, gets to page 298, a question has occurred to him...and to most readers, I suspect..."Why were members of the American military assisting a fugitive SS officer and a scion of Germany's most powerful industrial family to carry out a heinous scheme whose success would ensure only personal heartbreak, national mourning and political instability?" The answer takes many more pages and involves a very plausable conclusion. This book is a departure from the previous notable first effort by the author, Numbered Account, but it stands on its own as a first class piece of writing which I recommend without hesitation.
Rating:
Summary: Not a Front Runner
Review: Disappointed. Plain and simple. Some interesting ideas but... I never really cared for the hero in the book- sort of a wimp. The other characters were just as bad. I didn't really care what happened to any of them. He also seems to bash America a bit. The USA vs. The Soviets? Not even a contest. Russia had already lost 20-30 million people fighting the Nazis. The Motherland didn't have much punch left. She even lost 100,000 taking a defeated Berlin! The ending was rather predictable. I could see it coming a mile away. Clint Eastwood/Line of Fire should sue. I disliked the book so much I left it on the cruise ship we were on. I have not done that with a book since Jurassic Park which I left in Italy. The writer also knows little about firearms. He calls pistol magazines "cartridges", he doesn't understand the difference between single and double action, and he really gets the capacity of magazines wrong. Kind of like Hollywood movies that let you fire without ever reloading. The author needs to read a F. Forsyth novel to learn how to put it together. Try "The Day of the Jackal" or "Dogs of War" for a complete suspense story. Sorry Reich.
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