Customer Reviews

The Hard Way: Jack Reacher 10 (Unabridged)

To be honest after reading some of the reviews here I was a bit wary of buying this in hardback. Fortunately I was pleasantly suprised. The last couple of Reacher's haven't exactly blown me away and I was quite unimpressed by "One Shot", but "The Hard Way" is a distinct improvement. The kidnap (or is it?) plot works well and kept me guessing to the end. Equally the body count is pretty low, but as Reacher has probably killed a couple of hundred people in his past adventures (about the same number as Britain lost in the Falklands war!) it adds a bit of realism to the book.

I have to agree with certain other reviewers that "the Hard way" lacks the sense of danger thats been so strong in the early books. The best by far was "Killing floor" especially the scene where 4 masked killers dressed entirely in white disposable jumpsuits hunted Reacher through the driving rain. A bit more of this in this book would have been very welcome.

All in all this latest installment in Reacher's adventures is well worth reading- hopefully Lee Child can bring back some of the excitement of his first books for his next Reacher!

It is a testament to Lee Child's skill that despite this not being one of Reacher's best adventures, I still couldn't put the book down and finished it within 2 days.

The novel's opening gambit, a hook upon which the rest of the novel hangs is unfortunately quite flimsy. Not to give too much away, but in order to get the ball rolling Child has Reacher act in a way that will have regular readers scratching their heads; an action which is so out of character, the reader assumes it will be explained in some clever plot twist later on. But it isn't, and as such is an unusually weak opening.

Once over this little hiccup however, the novel trundles along nicely leading to a customarily understated finale. Other reviews have pointed to this being one of the more violent of Reacher's novels. I have to say I thought it was pretty tame compared to say, 'Persuader' or 'Without Fail', but no less powerful for that. Other reviews have also noted Child's now formulaic style as becoming stale. Again, I have to say this may have been true leading up to this novel, 'One Shot' for instance was disappointing in its format and predictable pace, but I found the Hard Way refreshingly different.

Indeed, Child shows a rare descriptive elegance, stepping outside his comfort zone of dusty rural Americana to deal with a shiny, frantic New York, satiric London and the comatose Norfolk countryside with consummate flair and no little amount of humour. Being a Brit who has mastered the American novel, it was a real pleasure to see him turn his eye to his native country, picking up subtle idiosyncrasies that are all the more amusing for knowing this is his real home-town.

Not his best, but still a great read from a very talented writer.

JD

Lee Child is by any standards an extremely accomplished novelist, and his 'Jack Reacher' books deliver consistent excitement and thrills. This book was perhaps a little more far-fetched than some of his other novels, but the plot has some interesting and unexpected twists, and some of the images he conjured up are with me still.

As always, Reacher solves the problems in his own inimitable fashion, and the book is an entertaining and enjoyable read.

Having followed Jack Reacher from the beginning, I was starting to worry that Lee Child was sticking a little too closely to formula. Don't get me wrong...I'm a big fan and I love the character, but the denouement of Persuader and the showdown in One Shot share a lot of similarities. While The Hard Way once again follows a similar pattern, the story had enough different angles to keep me entertained, and I couldn't put it down. Hopefully with the next book, however, we'll see Reacher thrown into a less familiar situation, forcing him to handle things a little differently.

I've read all of the Jack Reacher novels and I must say this one was going well until the end of the book, when the story started to develop serious plot holes. In this book Reacher becomes involved in the kidnapping of a woman and her child. At the request of her husband, a ruthless mercenary, Reacher tries to find them both and his investigation goes from New York to London.

The story is well developed but after about 3/4 of the way through it all became implausible and slightly laughable, mainly because I would have reached the point of truth way before Reacher himself did. Sorry to be pedantic but his investigation was awful and Child carefully leads the reader up the garden path of his own making. all I could remember thinking was I could have solved this much quicker than Jack Reacher. No action until the end of the book and even then it seemed largely superfluous.

all in all the book starts well but fails to live up to its initial promise and ultimately disappoints. Not an awful book, just not that good

Lee Child has had a "mini-wobble" with this one.

Yes - its still excellently written. Yes - Reacher is still righting wrongs as only he can. Yes - you'll smile at Reacher's observations of the odd behaviour of brits.

BUT - the trouble for Lee Child is that he's set himself some very high standards and this is a tad below his best. He's still better than most which is why this gets 4 stars from me but I wouldn't pay up for it in hardback, put it that way...

Several years ago now, Lee Child (an English writer living in the US) developed Jack Reacher as the central character for his books. He's a former military policeman who 'went all Kung Fu' and decided to 'walk the Earth' after leaving the army (for want of a better description).

In the books, Child deposits Reacher in different situations across the US and it's up to Reacher to solve crime local to where he ends up. In this book, he comes across a husband whose wife has been kidnapped. Unfortunately for the guy, this isn't the first wife to whom this has happened, and as a result, Reacher decides to investigate the kidnapping (as much to satisfy his curiosity as to what is going on as anything else).

It wasn't a bad book, but I've read a number of his books now and they're starting to feel a little samey. If you want that, you will probably like this book. If you don't, you'd probably do better to look elsewhere.

Sorry to say it, but coming so soon after the disappointment of The Enemy, which I thought got lost in its own wordiness, this time round our hero seems to be changing his spots.

Not only do we see the introduction of a close personal relationship but Jack shows he isn't one step ahead of us. Lee Child would do well to remember the creativity and twists of The Visitor, and the first half of Persuader when he starts on the next sequel, or perhaps change direction entirely and create a new character - Pauling would certainly extend his thought processes as I really felt he was writing this one by numbers.

Shame, because Jack is a great character, but bringing him to England was a complete farce.

Sorry Mr. Child, please try a bit harder next time or develop a new character for a while - after all thats what Michael Connolly has had to do as Harry runs out of steam a bit too often, so too does Robert Crais with Elvis so you would be in good company.

If you need any ideas let me know........

For some reason this book is already available in the Middle East. It is a great read, fast paced and full of twists and turns. Reacher is back to his best after what i felt were a couple of weaker books in the series. I read it in 3 days

As I am a `Virgin' as far as Lee Child's books are concerned, I was quite surprised to read on the fly leaf that the author is not American, particularly as the content of the book is pure American thriller. This type of book is not really my cup of tea and would certainly not have been the first book I would have picked off the shelf, but I get books sent to me both from publisher's author's and also my family use every occasion to buy me books as presents and this is where this one came from.

I have since learned that as far as thriller authors are concerned Lee Child is flavour of the month, so it was with some interest that I sat down to read the book. The book is well structured. It has a beginning a middle and an end (you would be surprised how many books don't). Well written by an author who has researched his subject thoroughly and in Jack Reacher the leading character in the book he has portrayed an endearing modern day hero, who grows on the reader as the book progresses. For anyone who loves thrillers particularly American based thrillers. This would be manna from heaven. For those who love the authors writing, I am preaching to the converted. For those who have not read his books, they are well worth reading. Try this one and perhaps then you will want to read his other books too.