mystery

The latest book in the Jack Reacher novels, Lee Child has penned an enjoyable thriller. Ex-MP Reacher, although he was blackmailed by the FBI into taking the job, finds that his hunt for the vicious serial killer of young women who were at one time enlisted in the US Army, is a job he is more than qualified to undertake. Well developed characters, and what seems like behind-the-scenes knowledge of the subject matter make this an entertaining read.

This is my third of the Jack Reacher series, after Die Trying and Tripwire (have not read Killing Floor). Reacher is an interesting and likeable but highly flawed and frustrating character. Flawed not in the sense of human flaws, which always makes characters richer, but because the author--Lee Childs--has handicapped his own creation. We are told that Reacher, a former Army MP, is highly intelligent, magnificently large, strong and intimidating, a crack shot, an experienced and skillful investigator, and a creative, intuitive thinker; he is also an Army major who has mustered out and -- no other word for it --deteriorated into a bum. In Die Trying, Reacher explains that he lived his whole life on foreign bases and is traveling around the U.S. getting to know his own country; by Running Blind, he has no such excuse; he has simply become Willie Nelson--on the road again. No rhyme or reason for his restlessness and certainly no excuse for his reluctance to own anything, even an ID card or a comb. Any rational, intelligent, sensible man, no matter how relucant to be "anchored," should be willing to carry something besides a clip-on toothbrush--a small bag containing clean underwear, an extra pair of jeans and a shirt or two is not a major hindrance to traveling light. And not carrying ID is just plain idiotic. Childs, in order to make his character iconoclastic and therefore more intriguing to readers, has made him seem almost simple, immature, unreasonable, and ultimately, unbelievable, especially when there is no convincing reason for it, and considering Reacher's repeated assertion that he is "always happy." In Running Blind, I became very impatient with Reacher's stubborn refusal to assimilate even to the point of asking for and wearing clean clothes. I can't believe that anyone who grew up under military strictures as Reacher did--it's all he's ever known--could possibly be comfortable looking as disreputable as Reacher must look, wearing the same clothes--not to mention the same underwear!--for days at a time, and to appear finally, at a party important to someone he loves, in the same clothes, now smeared with paint! His lifestyle gives the Army and his army training a bad name and looks not so much like characteristics of a different kind of man as of an author's manipulation of the reader. I'm equally disappointed in Childs' unconscionable disruption of the one longstanding, terribly important relationship in Reacher's life, done for no other reason than to put him "out there" so that he can get involved in other cases, other bad guys, and, of course, other women. My quarrel with the character of Reacher aside, I can't help liking him and I find Child's writing imminently readable. Although I knew the identity of the villains in both Tripwire and Running Blind long before Mr. Reacher explained things to us, and although Childs failed to make clear the identify of the colonel who was reading and marking the list in RB--was that the padre colonel?--he manages to maintain good narrative flow and suspense. Still, I keep thinking of how the great Donald Hamilton would have handled this character. Childs should take a page (no pun intended) out of Hamilton's best writing and allow Reacher growth and change and maturity before he becomes ridiculous to the point of absurdity and wears out his welcome both in our towns and on our reading lists!

The "top 100 reviewer" said, "The absolutely very best thing about RUNNING BLIND is the plot twist identity of the Perp". And I'd agree, if I hadn't guessed the perp after about a third of the way into the book. Child's Reacher thrillers are good because you are not supposed to guess what comes next. But in the Reacher mysteries, his clues are often pretty obvious. Read it anyway; see if you agree.