Tripwire (Jack Reacher, Book 3)

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I really liked the villain in this novel. He is cunning, psychotic and has extraordinary mental strength and physical prowess. A worthy adversary to our hero! I think what I liked best about this book was the more usual format of doing detective work and plotting ahead what you're going to look up next vs reacting to a situation (how the other books were). Maybe it's because I'm a fan of crime shows and like that procedural element or maybe it's due to it being a change of pace. Reacher is dragged across the country trying to help a long lost friend/daughter of his favourite boss from his army days. There was no chemistry between these two and you knew they would hook up before the end as soon as they met. Women seem to swoon at Reacher and it all seems to be following a pattern. One description that made me laugh though was "like a condom stuffed with walnuts" to describe Reacher’s physique. The provisional title for Tripwire was The Hook, but that name was scrapped as Putnam believed the title was not "punchy" enough. [5] Putnam also believed The Hook would remind people too much of Peter Pan. [6] Reception [ edit ]

Flash forward a decade-and-a-half. Garber has died and Jodie is now a stunningly perfect 29 year old attorney who has gotten Reacher mixed up in the mess about which the novel is concerned. The Hook” captures Jodie as the legal authority to Chester Stone, being is forced to sign paper to his Stone Optical company.The detective had been hired by Reacher’s old friend and commanding officer’s beautiful daughter Jodie. Garber had been conducting an investigation into a MIA American soldier in Vietnam, and now Reacher and Jodie must continue. Okay, more like it. I have found myself running hot and cold in the Reacher series. There can be a huge eye roll factor in some of them...and there is a bit of that here. However...this one is very well constructed and the story pulled me in and wouldn't let go.

Lee Child began writing Tripwire in spring 1997. [4] The book was published on 15 June 1999 in the United Kingdom [1] and the American publication followed on 28 June of the same year. [2] Okay, don't get too excited now. According to Child, Reacher is 6' 5" and about 250 lbs of hard muscle. This is what that might look like. The figured out the secret mystery. “Hobie” NYC version stole Victor Hobie's identity tags in Viet NamLee has three homes—an apartment in Manhattan, a country house in the south of France, and whatever airplane cabin he happens to be in while traveling between the two. In the US he drives a supercharged Jaguar, which was built in Jaguar's Browns Lane plant, thirty yards from the hospital in which he was born. Reacher is living as a swimming pool digger and minding his own business, when a private detective comes looking for him. And very soon – yes, you have guessed it! – the detective is tortured to death, and thus begins the adventure. Why couldn’t Jodie have been in college and Reacher only a few years older when they met and were attracted to each other? Then it’s not an issue at all and makes Reacher far less creepy. (The only thing I can think of is that Child had a Hollywood idea of what a couple in this kind of story looks like, and god forbid we have a lady over thirty hooking up with the hero even though he’s pushing forty himself.) Child still has a tendency to slip into excessive detail now and then. I bet he loves to blather on and on at parties. Child nods to police and spycraft excellence in many guises and especially feminine excellence. Frances Neagley served under Reacher as an MP and occasionally appears in a story at his behest (except once she summons him at hers). He commands her loyalty and knows she is one of the few humans on the planet who could take him out one-on-one (with firearms or other deadly means). She's his superior in spycraft. An occasional joke is that he believes he has gone from points A to B to C without being watched/tailed - only to discover later that Neagley has had him surveilled all along.

Another thing is that the book constantly contradicts itself and then goes out of its way to underline that it’s doing so in the most forehead slapping way possible. For example, at one point Reacher thought he knew how some thugs would come after him and Jodie. Yet they use a different tactic which takes him by surprise and almost works. Afterword, Reacher calmly notes that he hadn’t thought about them doing that which was almost a fatal mistake. Yet later in the book when it looks like an assumption that he made was wrong Reacher has a complete meltdown about it where he bemoans the loss of his once perfect record at following his hunches and wonders what he’s supposed to do in life now that his skills have so obviously failed him. So Reacher shrugs off making an error that almost gets them killed, and yet when a blue sky guess he made that has no immediate potential impact looks like it might be wrong he falls apart. Tracing the dead man's trail to New York, Reacher discovers the PI was working for Reacher's former commanding officer, mentor and close friend Leon Garber. Reacher teams up with Garber's daughter Jodie, a sharp Wall Street lawyer, to find out why Leon needed Reacher's help and they find themselves embroiled in a life-threatening search for the truth—and the deeper they dig, the more dangerous and twisted their path becomes.Well, let's look at an example. Reacher has been in Florida when he's drawn into the "mystery" (no spoilers, sorry). He's been making a living hand digging swimming pools. Once he's drawn

of the time Reacher is indeed "the smartest guy in the room". The other 1% is when he's with those competent associates - then they communicate in a kind of shorthand that shows Reacher is with his kind of people. Unfortunately, his prose is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Most irritating of all, it's not irredeemably bad, it just needs a good editor. Who is Lee Child's editor? Does he even have one? He also has disdain for most law-enforcement personnel - not just officers - mostly because they are ruining his day. Exceptions are those he needs and teams with. The kidnapped lady FBI agent is one. Others include the various clerical experts who can tweak databases, call in favors, cajole other police/military clerks, and generally do what it takes to get Reacher his information. He flouts the law - instead he is guided with his own moral compass - one that is more true, more admirable than legislative bodies and regulators can usually imagine. His ultra-competence and self-control permit him to narrowly focus his aggression. This narrow focus mostly justifies his extra-legal acts. He does not imagine that aggressors need escape injury or death, therefore, he rejects much of the constraints that ruled his MP career - and which rule our police. Reacher never starts fights. Many times he could walk away, except that his assailants would probably hurt him if he did so. He measures his force (and the injury he exerts) proportionally to the threat. He kills mostly to avoid being killed. Occasionally he kills the bad guys preemptively, usually when imprisoned and his captors would kill him to prevent his escape.Reacher wins a final fight. He says “You’re not Victor Hobie. You’re Carl Allen.” Reacher beats & kills Carl Allen. This book, number three in the collection and the third one I’ve read will be closing the chapter on Child’s Reacher books. And you can’t even say that Reacher viewing the remains in Honolulu was critical because he just figures out what his old buddy already knew, and that’s not even the really important part of the story. The classified stuff that the guy finally gives up is the key stuff. Which he could have done OVER THE GODDAMN TELEPHONE! He finds the “mysterious” Jodie at Leon Garber’s funeral, his x-military police commanding officer & mentor. Reacher(38) meets Jodie Jacob(30), Leon’s beautiful gorgeous daughter. Jodie is a successful debt lawyer, who hired Costello to find Reacher as a client has pressure to lose monies somewhere with their company.