Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, 1)

Rating:
Summary: JACK REACHER -- MY NEW HERO
Review: Even though I read about fifty books a year in the Mystery/Thriller genre, this is my first introduction to Lee Child. He comes highly recommended and I'm now wondering why I waited so long to pick up one of his books.

My immediate thoughts on this author are that I like his writing style. He writes like we speak -- shorter sentences and gets right to the point. My second discovery is his use of surprises. There's nothing I like more than reading a book where I don't know what's going to happen at the end of a chapter. I love having some of those "Oh, No" moments when settling down with a mystery. My third and probably most important reason for liking this book is the main character. Finally, I meet Jack Reacher -- 6'4", 36 years old, a former military policeman and, best of all, he's not a wise-guy. I don't know why most authors think they have to resort to the wise-cracking main character in order to have a successful book. To me, Jack Reacher is a refreshing change.

The setting of this book, Margrave, Georgia, is reminiscent of a Stepford town. Everything is perfect, everything is clean, everyone is happy with their lives....until dead bodies start showing up. Reacher, who just happens to be wandering through Margrave, is immediately considered a suspect simply because he's an outsider. But little does this town know that it's the "insiders" they have to worry about as Reacher sets out to prove his innocence and seeks revenge for the death of someone from his past. And when Reacher sets out to seek revenge, he means it, as he has no problem at all in killing bad people.

In the beginning of the book, he won't know whom to trust and neither will the reader. As the story progresses, however, you will become amazed at Reacher's intelligence and will become attuned to his deciphering of even the smallest clue.

Jack Reacher has now moved right up on top of my list of favorite main characters in a mystery series. I've looked past the fact that he has no problem killing people.

I'm just so glad that this is a series because it means that I get to visit with this pantheon of human pulchritude again and again and again. Next up....Die Trying.

Rating:
Summary: But did you know there really was a Blind Blake?
Review: I loved this book from the first page. I devoured this book, unable to put it down. I read it in less than a week which is saying a lot for me. I liked Jack Reacher a lot. He's got a past, he's not all good, but he's the good guy. "Sometimes good guys don't wear white." If were to compare him to any character, I'd say John McClane from Die Hard or even Blondie from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (the greatest Western ever made!). He's a bad ass you have to like. He is the anti-hero you want to see in any action flick.

I found the other characters likeable but not very deep. Part of this is because Child never explores them much, this is after all a jack Reacher novel, and in part because they all have single-name names, Roscoe, Finlay, Hubble. I didn't mind. I found it easy to follow and not confuse characters. The bad guys were stock, smarmy, and slimy, straight out of The Dukes of Hazzard, easy to hate.

The back cover mentions the brutal violence. Many reviewers mentioned the extreme violence. I didn't think that the violence was all that bad. When its there, its quick and brutal, sure, but its not like its in every chapter, a non-stop Quentin Tarantino ode to violence. Certainly not any worse than the Bourne Identity or Point of Impact. Perhaps thin skinned people shouldn't read thrillers.

While a minor, minor subplot, though really the anchor of the book, I did enjoy the faint tangent of Reacher searching for the story of blues legend Blind Blake.It added just a hint of depth to Reacher.

Overall, a great book. If you are a Tarantino fan, if you loved Die Hard, if you like a fast paced no holds barred action-thriller, you will love this book. Ignore the petty detail stuff like the shrugging and simple names. Otherwise, try Robert Ludlum or Stephen Hunter. I have to admit I am tempted to read the next Jack Reacher novel, after all I want to find the answer to "all Jack knows is he didn't kill anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time..."

For more details, go to aj.huff.org. Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: Blew me away
Review: I must agree with some of the other reviews that the book contains minor quirks, excessive shrugging, and continual short, choppy sentences. However, the plot was one of the best that I have read in years. I only wish I had picked this up when it was originally published, because I now have some catching up to do with the Reacher series.

Rating:
Summary: decent first effort
Review: Jack Reacher was an Army brat turned military policeman until the end of the Cold War brought on a peace dividend that included Pentagon downsizing. Now he's taking some time to drift around the United States, checking out the haunts of old time blues greats, before he decides what to do next. But the decision is made for him when he's arrested for murder in Margrave, Georgia. He quickly proves to the black, Boston-transplant, chief of detectives that he's not guilty and prepares to move on, until it turns out that the murder victim was Reacher's brother, Joe, a Treasury agent. Intent on revenge, Reacher starts digging, with the help of the Chief and a friendly woman police officer, and quickly uncovers a mammoth conspiracy as the corpses start piling up.

Take equal parts In the Heat of the Night, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Point of Impact and Rambo, give them a good shake and you've pretty much got this interesting, though flawed, debut thriller by a British author. I saw flawed because the plot is simply driven by too many coincidences and epiphanies; Reacher makes so many intuitive leaps that it starts to become somewhat annoying. On the other hand, Reacher is a likable hero and Child is clearly trying to hit a home run with this modern noir. He started out in British television and his writing has a sort of cinematic quality to it, the book reads like a movie. I'll give him credit for a decent first effort and assume the subsequent installments will be even better. In fact, I've already bought the second book.

GRADE: B-

Rating:
Summary: Great new hero, great beginning, fine plot, fun reading !
Review: This was our first Lee Child, and his first work introducing leading man Jack Reacher. Jack is a retired homicide investigator for the military police, and as this book opens, just roaming the country looking for something to grab his interest in life. We meet him minding his own business eating brunch in a diner in Margrave, Ga., where after a few minutes, the police storm the eatery and arrest Jack for murder! We all know he's absolutely innocent, but our attention was riveted by Child's technique of having Reacher actually start working the murder case as he himself is being interrogated as a suspect!

Spending a day in the slammer as a material witness, along with an unfortunate banker named Hubble, whose phone number being in the murdered man's shoe makes him a suspect as well, Reacher kills (in self-defense) another inmate, the first in a series of brutal slayings depicted throughout the novel. So now we know Reacher can more than take care of himself both physically and mentally.

Soon the police discover Reacher's got an airtight alibi for the murder; then it's discovered the victim is by total coincidence Reacher's brother Joe, a US Treasury special agent in charge of counterfeiting. And so the plot is off and running. Before it's over, some bad cops are unearthed, with we readers often getting to smell out the rat in advance, which was fun. Police Officer Ms. Roscoe, who took a shining to Jack upon sight, provides our hero a stirring and sexy romance, which was an interesting sub-plot with which we anxiously awaited resolution.

To us, Child's writing skill, his pace and ability to sustain action and suspense, and his crafty plot with just the right amount of complications, has given us a page-turning, stellar new series to enjoy. Can't wait to read our next Reacher!

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and violent just the way I like it!
Review: With fast-paced action and creative plot twists, Lee Child's done something I couldn't fathom--write a character (Jack Reacher) who's every bit the man and hero of Stephen Hunter's, Bob Lee Swagger lore. With a compelling first-person narrative, you discover Reacher's depth of character in his love of Roscoe versus his untamed violence. It's a real page-turner! I'm overwhelmingly impressed and plan to read "Die Trying" immediately.