Rating: 
Summary: Tripwire is a Great Read
Review: Ever since I read "Killing Floor" by Lee Child I have been captivated by his books. This his 3rd book in the series may not be as good as the previous two, but is sill a very good read. Lee Child has a brilliant hero in Jack Reacher and I look forward to reading the rest of this fabulous series.
Rating: 
Summary: COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER.
Review: I had to read a book by Lee Child as i had heard a lot about him.
But i am very sorry to say that i picked a book which will perhaps not make me very keen to read a Lee Child book again so fast.
The book had lengthy details about almost everything which was not necessary and could have been avoided.
It sort of killed the thrill in the book.
I am sure it could have been a very good book as the main outline of the story is very good, also it has a very sinister villian which will shock the living daylights out of you.
Read this one only if you are a loyal fan of Child.
Rating: 
Summary: A great thriller, but...
Review: I won't recap the storyline; that is easily found elsewhere. Lee Child supposedly has his own website; but when you try it, you get only a blank page. So, the quibble I wished to post there ends up here instead. I didn't realize until reading other reader reviews that Child is an Englishman writing American-style thrillers. Maybe that explains the stylistic lapses that annoy me in his work. By the time I reached this 3rd book in the series, I was already tired of them.For example: sooner or later, everyone says, "Blah-blah-blah, right?" Sooner or later, everyone says (something like) "Hell are you doing?" for "What the hell are you doing?" (you'd think at least someone would get it right). And, sooner or later, everyone (including the author himself) says, "Time to time" which means nothing in itself. What they mean is "FROM time to time." I don't know where Mr. Child got the idea that everyone in America speaks the same way, but the next time he's here he should listen more closely. But aside from this, Lee Child's books are excellant thrillers, second only to those of Dennis Lehayne.
Rating:
Summary: Fun but deeply flawed
Review: This book was a pleasant read, but it was deeply flawed by numerous glaring factual improbabilities or impossibilities. For example: (a) the villain dumps stock of a closely held private company on "the Exchange," although only stock of public companies can be sold on a stock exchange, (b) the company's bankers are blissfully ignorant of the company's financial situation and panic like frightened rabbits as soon as its stock takes a momentary dip, (c) developers are apparently prepared to give the villain millions, on a few days notice, for real estate on which there are 500 existing homes, (d) the hero bursts, unarmed, into a room containing two armed drug dealers, knocks them out with his bare hands and steals one of their guns (please don't try this at home); (e) the villain has tortured and killed scores of people in his office at the World Trade Center, taking the bodies down the freight elevator in packing boxes, without apparently once raising any suspicions from, say, the janitorial staff, (f) the hero stops a bullet, fired at close range, with his massive chest muscles, and so on. Authors working in the thriller/mystery genre often need to take a certain amount of poetic license with the facts of life to make their stories work, but Mr. Child has taken so much here that Tripwire is only a step or two above a comic book and dances perilously close to insulting the reader's intelligence.
Rating:
Summary: I'm in the minority...
Review: of readers, because I think that Tripwire represents an evolution of Child's storytelling, and is better than his first two novels. Of course, that is probably because I'm a woman who wanted to see Dirty Harry evolve, as well....nevertheless, here's what I thought of Tripwire... "Tripwire" is the third outing for Lee Child's Jack Reacher, and the first in which the much-decorated soldier finally appears to want to put down roots in his post-military
saga. Lee Child cures most of his writing style issues in his story of a brutal and sadistic villain, Hook Hobie, and his way of life following his unlikely escape from a firestorm in Vietnam.
Hobie is a devastating foe, and his willingness to kill and pursue pain in order to cover up his past knows no bounds. His motivation, once his identity is known to Reacher, is still a mystery, that remains so until the end of the book. Caught in the crossfire is Reacher's former commander, Garber, and through his death both Reacher and Garber's daughter Jodie are caught up in the killing fields of Hobie's need for cover. The situation is made more complex by the military regime's need to also continue the cover up, but for different reasons. Reacher's reaction to Jodie is a central force in the novel,
His feelings for her go back fifteen years. This might be the central lynchpin that has Child turning his future story line around from Reacher the wanderer to Reacher, the same investigative force in civilian life as he was in the military. Child, whose willingness to describe savagery and weaponry in detail in past novels, does not change his focus, but does change the level of detailed description, in a positive way.
His eye for the upstate New York landscape and the level of descriptiveness he uses in his setting in Tripwire much improve the plot. It's a big plot, with great flashback sequences to Vietnam and to the early days of Reacher & Jodie's relationship, and interesting and well-researched detail into the counterfeit currency trade. Lee Child scores big and leaves the reader anxious for his next Reacher novel, "Running Blind."
Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Not compelling enough to read again
Review: I nice yarn with lovely areas of suspense. But a little to "American" for me. If you are after a simple thriller this is for you.
Rating:
Summary: THE OTHER TWO WERE BETTER!!!!!
Review: This is my third Lee Child book, I think the other two were much better. Jack Reacher is again the hero. He is trying to find out what happend to Victor Hobie. Did he did die in Vietnam or not? If he did who is making all the bad things happen? Parts of the book were great and parts were very, very slow moving. In one place it took two pages to tell out Hobie went to bed. There were pages of airline travel to many different places. Most all the book is about the Stone family, Chester and Mayilyn but in the end nothing is said about what happened to them. They just are not there any more. Shame, shame Mr. Child. I found myself scanning several pages because they were just talk or thinking which did not amount to anything. I hope the next book is as good as the first two.
Rating:
Summary: Muscular Hero, Evil Villain
Review: My second Jack Reacher novel. He is a muscular, straight-forward hero pitted against a truly nasty bad-guy. A fairly original plot, good action, and crisp dialogue moves the story along. I plan to keep reading Lee Child, the two books I've read are a cut above most of the action books on the market.
Rating:
Summary: I'm wired!
Review: This was my 3rd Jack Reacher book. Couldnt put it down. It's a little more sadistic whan I like but I hung in there. I knew Reacher would win out! What a guy! Was afraid it would turn into a romance novel but it seemed to be ok. This is an outsanding read series. Thrilling. Found myself moving around a lot in tension. Sometimes it gets way over the top but will order the next book in line. Exciting reading.
Rating:
Summary: Heavy on the Sadism
Review: I love the Jack Reacher novels. Having said that, I was less than thrilled with Tripwire. In previous novels, Child uses a few deft scenes to describe his vicious, soulless villains. In Tripwire, Child structured his story in such a way that a lot of time had to be spent with the villain. Therefore, there are numerous scenes of sadistic cruelty. Their repetition, while stylishly written, left me feeling fatigued and frankly bored. Yes, we found out the villain is bad. A bit later, we realized he was very, very bad. By the time Child convinced me the bad guy was very, very, very bad, I no longer cared and simply wanted the character put out of my misery. Having lodged this complaint, however, I found the overall plot wonderfully complex and entertaining. I still think Jack Reacher is the finest hero since Travis McGee.
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