Rating: 
Summary: Another breathtaking ride with Reacher
Review: So far, author Child has yet to deliver anything less than a riveting book. Without Fail gives us Reacher in the ultimate urban setting: the heart of the Secret Service in DC. What would, in less capable hands, have been a deadly dull tale of a highly experienced outsider brought in to help the woman in charge of the detail protecting the vice president-elect is, in Child's hands, a fascinating study of how seemingly innocuous pieces of evidence lead from point to point until the reason behind the threats and assassination attempts is revealed.Writing in the spare, tight prose that has become synonymous with Reacher's character--this man who owns almost nothing, lives anywhere, but is not emotionally unencumbered--the plot builds in pitch until it hits a crescendo, literally in the middle of nowhere. Reacher and his associate, Frances Neagley, (former military associate he has called upon for assistance on this job) work together like the proverbial well-oiled machine, and it is pure pleasure to witness how they think, how they deduce, how they calculate odds, risks, plans of action. The author allows the behavior of the primary characters to reveal their inner lives, rather than wasting precious narrative time (and flow) on attempts to explain them from the outside-in. Final words, a half-written letter, the touch of one hand on another all have great import as a result. This is a fine book. Most highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Lee Child At His Best
Review: Some people want Vice President-elect, Brook Armstrong dead. They tried to kill him in September. They had the silencer on the gun and the perfect location but the bullet missed. No one in the crowd heard the gun shot. Armstrong's hair stirred as the bullet moved past him but he thought it was nothing more than the wind. The attempt was a failure and no one noticed. They would try again. Soon. ... So begins Lee Child's newest and best book to date, WITHOUT FAIL. ...This is the sixth in the series. WITHOUT FAIL takes the readers behind the scenes of the Secret Service and shows us how they react to situations, why they do what they do to protect the people they're hired to protect, and we also get to see the measures they go through to do their job successfully. Lee Child's books get better and better with each addition to the series. WITHOUT FAIL is a real page-turner with plenty of excitement all through it. Child has not only made a detailed study of his character, but he has delved into the workings of the military and government. Yes, on occasion Reacher and Neagley sometimes seem to have superhuman powers, but the readers will willingly forgive those moments to cheer on the heroes of this story. This new fast paced novel not only keeps you on your toes trying to figure out who wants to kill the Vice President-elect but also keeps you wondering why. Child gives us the answers to the questions as the book progresses. We start to understand how personal childhood experiences control our actions as adults. In WITHOUT FAIL, Child has written a wonderfully thrilling story. I highly recommend this well written book.
Rating:
Summary: Welcome to the School of Suspense
Review: The ancients believed that writers should begin modestly and then work their way through the genres until they attained the skill to attempt the epic form. Lee Child started at the top and he's not coming down from the mountain. His books are marked by a very high and very even level of quality; each can be recommended with equal enthusiasm. He is also one of the hardest working writers in the game, chasing down elusive facts and playing out exotic threads of detail. Check out his riff on the U.S. constitution in WITHOUT FAIL (and the Holmesian homage as Jack explains its importance). And yes, he is an Englishman (from Cumbria), though his subjects, ethos, and protagonist are all American. Like Tim Willocks he is an Atlantic crime novelist, equally at home on either side of the water. For those who may be concerned: relax, they love him in the U.K. WITHOUT FAIL is disappearing from the shelves of British bookstores and Child is commanding major media attention in his homeland. He is big, big, big.
Rating: 
Summary: Lee Child is dependable
Review: The Jack Reacher novels are one of the best series going right now. The hero is just on the edge of superhuman, but he has the down-to-earth blandness of Clark Kent. A drifter, he is rootless, and yet he has a rich, fascinating history. There isn't a bad Reacher novel (*Echo Burning* is a personal favorite), and *Without Fail* is one of the good ones. Given Amazon's breathless terror of "spoilers," I won't bother with plot details. Check out the editorial reviews for that. I will say that Child does three things here that make this novel memorable. First, he creates a complex thriller plot worthy of the Clancy/Ludlum crowd. Second, he gives Reacher a love interest with great and intriguing psychological complexity and then resolves it in a way that is cruel and true. Third, he provides a thread to the personal side of Reacher's story that has potential to take the character into some new emotional territory. Vague enough for ya? Read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not A Failure: A Great Thriller!
Review: The Secret Service classifies serious threats of assassination in two ways. They are separated into those assassins that want to commit the assassination and get away as compared to those that want to commit the assassination and are perfectly willing to die for it in the process. In either case, the Secret Service knows that if the assassin really wants to do it, then they can't be realistically stopped. M. E. Froelich knows this and she also knows that the Secret Service has never lost a Vice President. As team leader, guarding the newly elected Vice President Armstrong, she does not want to be the first. She has a plan and her boss has given the unprecedented okay to bring in outsiders. "'I want to hire you for something," she said. "On a kind of posthumous recommendation from Joe. Because of what he used to say about you. He
talked about you, from time to time."
Reacher nodded. "Hire me for what?"
Froelich paused again and came up with a tentative smile.
"I've rehearsed this line," she said. "Couple of times."
"So let me hear it."
"I want you to assassinate the Vice President of the United States.'" Actually, what she really wants is for him to use his military training and other skills and tell her if he could successfully get to Armstrong. By using the memory of his dead brother (who she worked with and was a lover) who at least on level was trying to emulate him as well as the fact that Reacher finds the exercise interesting, she gets him to agree to the attempt with specific goals and recommendations in mind for improvement. Reacher brings in Neagle with whom he has worked with before (see other novels in this series) and together they identify some manageable weaknesses in the plan. Reacher explains the problems to the Froelich and then pushes her for the real reason he was brought in as the Service would never bring in outsiders unless they were very concerned. As it turns out, there is a credible threat against Armstrong's life. It is serious and seems to be coming from either a current or former agent of the Secret Service. Since almost everyone is under suspicion, Reacher and Neagle are asked to identify the threat and stop him or her while Froelich continues to coordinate her team's protection of the Vice President. Reacher and Neagle begin to chase the assassins across country and back again while Armstrong's life hangs in the balance until a fateful showdown in the snow in Wyoming. As a parent of school age children, there are not that many books anymore that keep me up past midnight reading. Quite frankly, there aren't that many that can keep me up past ten anymore for that matter. However, this one did it and was thriller in every sense of the word. While it does not plow any new ground really in the Jack Reacher character development, we learn a few new things that reinforce the way he is while at the same time, having a heck of good twisting story to read. This novel has plenty of action and the last 50 pages are very good as Reacher takes care of business his way. This novel is the sixth in the series featuring Jack Reacher. While this one, more than the others could be read as a stand alone, I would recommend otherwise. A few things are covered briefly in this novel that might diminish the reading pleasure of some of the other novels in the series. The first novel of the series is Killing Floor...This is one author definitely worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Without Fail - succeeded!
Review: These book was great! I could not put it down. Jack Reacher is my hero, the guy is unbeatable.
His brother Joe's former girlfriend, who is Secret Service guarding the VP elect, seeks Reacher out to infiltrate her team to find holes in their security and does he ever! After the boring part about questioning the cleaning crew, this book takes off. Reacher and his friend Neagley are pros of the first order (how does Lee do it?). This time Lee is a little kinder to the FBI. The other reviews of this book are right on. Such a good read. So worth the $.
Rating: 
Summary: A Man's Book
Review: This book is action packed and has entertainment galore, for men mostly, but for women also who like James Bond type stories of hidden assassins and detailed descriptions of weapons and ammo. A plot has been set to assassinate the Vice-President elect of the United States. The why is answered at the end of the story, but only one Secret Service man is aware of the plot. Someone has infiltrated that elite group, and now there's only one man in the entire world who can capture the would-be assassin. Jack Reacher, brother of Joe Reacher, a former Secret Service Agent now deceased (although we never find out how Joe died), is an "outsider", hired to play the role of an assassin, to find the loopholes and the errors in the Secret Service's plans to protect the Vice President-elect Brook Armstrong. Jack Reacher does a great job, but why and who wants to asassinate Armstrong?Is there a secret in his past? It's time to find out. Good plot, well developed characters, action packed, but just not my kind of book. Perhaps you will enjoy it better.
Rating:
Summary: NO FAILURE HERE
Review: This fifth entry in the Jack Reacher series cooks! Child once again delivers a seemingly impossible mystery. Someone's out to kill a vice-president elect, and Reacher finds himself involved at the request of his late brother's ex-girlfriend. He becomes romantically involved with her (of course), and also finds his partner, Frances Neagley, may also have the hots for the stud loner. The pace is good, as always, and there's some highly suspenseful scenes. The finale is riveting, and Child has a way in describing the isolation of the scene. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Rating:
Summary: Layer Upon Layer of Mystery and Violence
Review: This is a complex thriller, and in it we see Jack Reacher a little differently than we have in previous outings. He has been asked by a woman who was involved with his now-dead brother to help her find weak spots in the Secret Service protection of a newly-elected Vice-President. This meeting with M.E. Froehlich opens up a little of Jack's history to us and the life that he and his older brother led while they were growing up as army brats in various army bases throughout the world. We also see Jack request the aid of a former co-worker from the army. Neagley is the female equivalent of Jack - brilliant, well-trained and oh so cool. Jack and Neagley make a formidable team. Not only do they find the weaknesses in the Secret Service protection detail, they hunt down and take retribution themselves on the bad guys that not only threatened the Vice-President, but who hurt and killed people who were close to them. Child's writing is spare and chilling. Yes there is violence, but it's not over-drawn and seems to flow as part of the story and helps build the terrible tension that is simmering throughout the whole book. His form of writing keeps the reader hurriedly turning pages to find out what happens next.
Rating:
Summary: Layer Upon Layer of Mystery and Violence
Review: This is a complex thriller, and in it we see Jack Reacher a little differently than we have in previous outings. He has been asked by a woman who was involved with his now-dead brother to help her find weak spots in the Secret Service protection of a newly-elected Vice-President. This meeting with M.E. Froehlich opens up a little of Jack's history to us and the life that he and his older brother led while they were growing up as army brats in various army bases throughout the world. We also see Jack request the aid of a former co-worker from the army. Neagley is the female equivalent of Jack - brilliant, well-trained and oh so cool. Jack and Neagley make a formidable team. Not only do they find the weaknesses in the Secret Service protection detail, they hunt down and take retribution themselves on the bad guys that not only threatened the Vice-President, but who hurt and killed people who were close to them. Child's writing is spare and chilling. Yes there is violence, but it's not over-drawn and seems to flow as part of the story and helps build the terrible tension that is simmering throughout the whole book. His form of writing keeps the reader hurriedly turning pages to find out what happens next.
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