Kevin G. (sackett) reviewed on + 14 more book reviews
This is a good book, as are all of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, but in terms of stakes and events, I enjoyed this one less that most of the others. No fault of the writing, per sey -- Lee Child is a good, consistent writer who knows his series characters and sticks to them -- more of a stylistic choice that didn't work for me. It (intentionally) mimics the sense of endless desolation inherent to the geography in which it is set, but sitting in the sun, waiting, while your brain boils in your skull as you wait, while you're waiting, and did I mention there's a lot of waiting? doesn't make as good a story as the book needs in order to truly succeed.
The primary support character is (again, intentionally) drawn with a frustratingly ambiguous brush, presumably to mirror the doubt Jack feels in wondering if he's being played the fool by a master manipulator rather than being the knight on the white horse he so oft strives to be, but for me, the strategy backfires. Yes, it smacks truer-than-most to real life dynamics of spousal abuse; but for the needs of the story being told, it holds me at arm's length from characters in whom I need to vest to feel Reacher is justified in the lengths he will go to in order to protect them.
The villains are one-dimensional and stereotypical -- more placeholders for "this is a bad person" than actual people, in fact -- and whether intended or otherwise, Child conveys such a pervasive bias against the landscape (and by association, the people who populate that landscape) that it comes across not as an aspect of the story itself, but rather a reflection of the author's personal feelings ... something that almost begs the reader to wonder what Texas ever did to Lee Child to make him see that chunk of the country as such an utter and irredeemable waste of sand.
All in all, it was a good enough read, but side-by-side with Child's other Reacher books, it left a lot to be desired. I suspect this was a bit of an authorial experiment in using geography and characters to personify the hot-button social issues addressed by the story line itself (spousal abuse, racism/bigotry, immigration), but if it was, it didn't work for me.
Yes, I got that being in abusive marriage is like being stranded in the middle of a desert with no one but enemies in sight. Yes, I got that the endless waiting in the book paralleled the endless waiting of being trapped in such a situation with no way out, waiting for rescue that odds-on will never come. Yes, I got that the uniformity of soullessness in the general population was a parallel for America's "notorious" indifference to the plight of those not born American; and that for the most part, even relatively benign racists are interchangeable cogs in a hate machine, so alike in their bigotries that they can be mistaken for one another if you didn't grow up with them.
The problem is, I don't really care, particularly when these points are made at the cost of the plot, support characters and pacing Jack Reacher needs to justify himself as the violent avenging angel of doom he's always going to, in the end, be.
The primary support character is (again, intentionally) drawn with a frustratingly ambiguous brush, presumably to mirror the doubt Jack feels in wondering if he's being played the fool by a master manipulator rather than being the knight on the white horse he so oft strives to be, but for me, the strategy backfires. Yes, it smacks truer-than-most to real life dynamics of spousal abuse; but for the needs of the story being told, it holds me at arm's length from characters in whom I need to vest to feel Reacher is justified in the lengths he will go to in order to protect them.
The villains are one-dimensional and stereotypical -- more placeholders for "this is a bad person" than actual people, in fact -- and whether intended or otherwise, Child conveys such a pervasive bias against the landscape (and by association, the people who populate that landscape) that it comes across not as an aspect of the story itself, but rather a reflection of the author's personal feelings ... something that almost begs the reader to wonder what Texas ever did to Lee Child to make him see that chunk of the country as such an utter and irredeemable waste of sand.
All in all, it was a good enough read, but side-by-side with Child's other Reacher books, it left a lot to be desired. I suspect this was a bit of an authorial experiment in using geography and characters to personify the hot-button social issues addressed by the story line itself (spousal abuse, racism/bigotry, immigration), but if it was, it didn't work for me.
Yes, I got that being in abusive marriage is like being stranded in the middle of a desert with no one but enemies in sight. Yes, I got that the endless waiting in the book paralleled the endless waiting of being trapped in such a situation with no way out, waiting for rescue that odds-on will never come. Yes, I got that the uniformity of soullessness in the general population was a parallel for America's "notorious" indifference to the plight of those not born American; and that for the most part, even relatively benign racists are interchangeable cogs in a hate machine, so alike in their bigotries that they can be mistaken for one another if you didn't grow up with them.
The problem is, I don't really care, particularly when these points are made at the cost of the plot, support characters and pacing Jack Reacher needs to justify himself as the violent avenging angel of doom he's always going to, in the end, be.
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