Die Trying (Jack Reacher, Book 2)

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But, that's not their only problem. Someone working with them might be playing both sides of the fence. Still, the flaws here are the kinds of things you’d expect from the genre and not the pure stupidity of the first book. That makes me think that maybe this series is worth a read after all. Besides, accepting just made Reacher look stupid. He's supposed to be the tough, logical operator. Time is wasting. Take care of business, have tender moments & take care of nerves afterward.

This is a book you could give almost any rating you want, and be able to justify it! For me these older Reacher books are gold dust. When I first started juggling CDs into my car stereo at service stations upon discovering Audiobooks my initial diet was Rebus and Reacher. Superb, classics both of them! Listening to the gloriously crunchy, gravelly tones of Jeff Harding doing this amazing Reacher character and bringing him to life was a complete wonder to me. It is exactly the voice I imagine the tough, aloof Reacher having even if the female characters don't fare quite so well. It turns out to be a very long ride in an Econoline van, all the way from Chicago to northwestern Montana, where a nutty but well-armed militia group is preparing to declare its independence from the United States. The kidnapped woman, Holly Johnson, is critical to the militia leader's plans. In fact coincidence is the key word in this novel, coincidence and cliché. Frankly there's way too much of them both throughout. The novel wavered between a 2-star and a 3-star for me. On the one hand the story was good and engaging. I wanted to keep reading to the end. On the other hand, some of the descriptive writing was so heavy handed it was laughable. I'm happy to put this down to second-novel nerves though. Just trying too hard to be better than the first success.The series has been highly praised by Stephen King and Jeffery Deaver – the best endorsements a thriller writer can get

After Reacher fails to takes advantage of an opportunity to escape during the night, Holly insists that he let her handle things. However, she ends up owing him when, during another stay, one of the kidnappers, Peter Bell, tries to rape her. Reacher breaks free of his restraints, kills Bell, hides his body, and re-restrains himself before the others become suspicious. Holly finally and reluctantly accepts his help after this. Also, why answer the radio when it becomes clear the bad guy only wants to use it to make his demands? If he can't make them, he has no lever. he’d lived and served all over the world most of his life. Outside the United States. It had left him knowing his own country about as well as the average seven-year-old knows it. So he couldn’t decode the subtle rhythms and feel and smells of America as well as he wanted to.”I did like this one a lot more than Killing Floor. It helped that Reacher is thrown into a scenario more fitting of an action hero rather than splitting time trying to play detective. Switching from the first person narrative to third person here is also a big improvement s because rather than the main character telling us how awesome he is we get to either see it or have it relayed from an outsider’s perspective.