Book Review - Tripwire by Lee Child
Category Book Reviews
Yup... completely and totally hooked... I just finished up the third installment in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child... Tripwire. And they seem to keep getting better.
Reacher, an ex-Army MP and drifter, is now in the Keys digging swimming pools by hand. No plan, no direction, it's just where he is at this point in time. His routine starts to crumble when two separate parties from New York show up looking for him, and he doesn't have a clue as to why they should need to know. He lies to both of them about who he is, and one of the individuals turns up dead a few hours later. Reacher decides his time in the Keys is up, and heads north to find out who's looking into his life. It ends up being the daughter of an Army general who was almost like Jack's dad. Running parallel to the story is another thread involving a CEO of a crumbling company and his attempts to keep it going by borrowing money from "Hook" Hobie, an amputee from the Vietnam war who takes great pleasure in using his prosthetic hook to inflict damage on those who do not pay up on time. Hobie is alerted that something from his past is starting to encroach on his current life, but he doesn't want to flee until he finishes the deal with the CEO. He also needs the daughter of the general that Reacher has hooked up with. Jack needs to keep the daughter safe, fulfill a promise to an elderly couple who's son is listed as missing in action, and figure out if he's ready to start settling down a bit...
I think what I like most about this series is Reacher's "humanness". It's far too easy to paint a main character as some "can do no wrong" superhero who always makes the right decisions. While Reacher is definitely a force to be reckoned with, he's also like a large child who hasn't figured out how to live in today's society like everyone else. The writing is terse and the story is pretty tight, and the total convergence of all the plotlines doesn't happen until the very end. I was definitely unsure as to how it was all going to resolve, and I really couldn't put the book down. This is some of the best recreational reading I've had in a long time, and I'm glad I have another five or so books left in the series before I'm up to date. Highly recommended...
Yup... completely and totally hooked... I just finished up the third installment in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child... Tripwire. And they seem to keep getting better.
Reacher, an ex-Army MP and drifter, is now in the Keys digging swimming pools by hand. No plan, no direction, it's just where he is at this point in time. His routine starts to crumble when two separate parties from New York show up looking for him, and he doesn't have a clue as to why they should need to know. He lies to both of them about who he is, and one of the individuals turns up dead a few hours later. Reacher decides his time in the Keys is up, and heads north to find out who's looking into his life. It ends up being the daughter of an Army general who was almost like Jack's dad. Running parallel to the story is another thread involving a CEO of a crumbling company and his attempts to keep it going by borrowing money from "Hook" Hobie, an amputee from the Vietnam war who takes great pleasure in using his prosthetic hook to inflict damage on those who do not pay up on time. Hobie is alerted that something from his past is starting to encroach on his current life, but he doesn't want to flee until he finishes the deal with the CEO. He also needs the daughter of the general that Reacher has hooked up with. Jack needs to keep the daughter safe, fulfill a promise to an elderly couple who's son is listed as missing in action, and figure out if he's ready to start settling down a bit...
I think what I like most about this series is Reacher's "humanness". It's far too easy to paint a main character as some "can do no wrong" superhero who always makes the right decisions. While Reacher is definitely a force to be reckoned with, he's also like a large child who hasn't figured out how to live in today's society like everyone else. The writing is terse and the story is pretty tight, and the total convergence of all the plotlines doesn't happen until the very end. I was definitely unsure as to how it was all going to resolve, and I really couldn't put the book down. This is some of the best recreational reading I've had in a long time, and I'm glad I have another five or so books left in the series before I'm up to date. Highly recommended...
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Besides... I have around 40 tech books lined up that need to be reviewed. :)
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