Lee Child
Mass Market Paperback | Pages: 424 pages Rating: 4.05 | 231593 Users | 10148 Reviews
Details Books In Pursuance Of Killing Floor (Jack Reacher #1)
| Original Title: | Killing Floor |
| ISBN: | 0515141429 (ISBN13: 9780515141429) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Jack Reacher #1, Jack Reacher Chronological Order #4 |
| Characters: | Resnick, Jack Reacher |
| Setting: | Margrave, Georgia(United States) |
| Literary Awards: | Barry Award for Best First Novel (1998), Macavity Award Nominee for Best First Mystery Novel (1998), Anthony Award for Best First Novel (1998), Dilys Award Nominee (1998), Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize 日本冒険小説協会大賞特別賞 for Best Translated Novel (2000) |
Chronicle As Books Killing Floor (Jack Reacher #1)
This reads like an '80s action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.A big tough ex-military guy drifts into a small town and is sucked into uncovering a vast criminal conspiracy through completely unbelievable coincidences. - Check.
Hero has a cool, manly sounding name: Jack Reacher. - Check
Hero is quickly given a personal grudge against the villains. - Check
Bad dialogue. - Check.
Stereotypical villains including corrupt businessmen and politicians. - Check.
Hero finds a few trustworthy allies, but is betrayed at some point. -Check
Hero shacks up with hottest girl in town within two days of meeting her. - Check
Hot girl gets kidnapped by bad guys at some point. - Check.
Stuff blows up real good at the end. - Check.
I know this is a really popular series these days, but unless it gets a lot better in later books, I just don't get it. I've read far better action scenes from guys like John Sandford who actually write thrillers that have plots that hang together and don't trot out every action movie cliche in the process. Plus, there are massive gaps in logic. A murder victim turns out to be a federal agent who is working on a super-secret case that is so important that it literally threatens the United States. Yet, after he's killed and it's reported, nobody else from the government even shows up to check it out. WTF? I can gloss over unrealistic procedural stuff in the interest of a good story, but since this isn't a good story, the plot loopholes are too horrible to ignore.
Another problem is that Child couldn't make up his mind if he wanted to write just an action novel or a detective story, and he tried to split the difference. Not good.
Reacher is the worst fictional detective I've ever read. Giant clues are put in front of him that anyone who has ever read a book or seen an episode of television since 1962 would instantly recognize, but he misses them. Yet, when called for, he can make ludicrous leaps of intuition that would make Sherlock Holmes scratch his head at the sheer implausibility of them. This might have been a better book if Reacher was just a revenge driven killing machine mowing through the bad guys without the pretense of playing detective.
This would have been 1 star, but I gave it an extra star because the main piece of the criminal plot is actually kind of clever and not something I'd read before. Unfortunately, it's the only original thing in this book.*
* Update 4/10/16 - I recently read another crime novel that used an identical idea of (view spoiler)[ bleaching $1 bills to use for counterfeiting purposes (hide spoiler)]. Since that book was published 36 years before this one it seems a lot less original then I initially thought so I took away that second star.
Be Specific About Containing Books Killing Floor (Jack Reacher #1)
| Title | : | Killing Floor (Jack Reacher #1) |
| Author | : | Lee Child |
| Book Format | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 424 pages |
| Published | : | April 25th 2006 by Jove (first published March 17th 1997) |
| Categories | : | Thriller. Fiction. Mystery. Crime. Suspense |
Rating Containing Books Killing Floor (Jack Reacher #1)
Ratings: 4.05 From 231593 Users | 10148 ReviewsCriticism Containing Books Killing Floor (Jack Reacher #1)
This reads like an '80s action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.A big tough ex-military guy drifts into a small town and is sucked into uncovering a vast criminal conspiracy through completely unbelievable coincidences. - Check.Hero has a cool, manly sounding name: Jack Reacher. - CheckHero is quickly given a personal grudge against the villains. - CheckBad dialogue. - Check.Stereotypical villains including corrupt businessmen and politicians. - Check.Hero finds a few trustworthy allies, but4 ½ stars. Rambo, Dirty Harry, with a hint of Sherlock Holmes fun, exciting, suspense, escape.STORY BRIEF:This is the first book in the Jack Reacher series, sixteen books so far. Its told in first person by Jack. He was a homicide investigator in the military police for thirteen years, hunting trained killers gone bad. He had to be able to outthink them and fight them. He retired as a major six months ago at age 36. Now Jack just wants to wander, living off his severance pay, buying cheap
Are you having a bad day? Do you need an Action Pick-You Up? Do you sometimes wish that the bad guys would get exactly what they deserve?Then I have a quick solution. Read a Jack Reacher novel!Jack Reacher is the kind of guy who will kick some serious butt in the most brutal fashion, and it ain't pretty. I admit that I wince when I see someone die violently on tv and in movies. But I love action movies. Yeah, I know it makes no sense. Killing Floor is the kind of book that I would love to see as
Right from the beginning, I was hooked! How can you possibly put a book down when the main character is arrested for murder in the first chapter? LOL, I don't know anyone who could. I liked this! Written in the first person, I felt like I was seeing everything through Jack's eyes. His opinions and his takes on his surroundings and the predicament he found himself in was different from what I've read before. It was weird how I knew exactly who the bad guys were, including one no one would ever
A good action / mystery.To be clear, the real success here is that writer Lee Child introduced us to his ultra-cool, badass drifter hero Jack Reacher. Described as 65, lean and strong, this former Army MP has left the service, taken his severance pay and is just walking the earth, kind of like Jules from Pulp Fiction. And like Jules and Jedi Knights the galaxy over, he finds adventure, beats the crap of bad guys, solves problems with Sherlock Holmes grandeur and generally has a big time doing
On the Flintstones, whenever there was an indoor chase scene, the background in the house never varied, it would be the same window, table, lamp running repeatedly behind the action, and the chase would go on seemingly forever - a veritable cartoon mile/1.6 kilometers. Watching the show as a kid, it was almost more than my sugar-fueled addled brain could handle.Reading this book was the same type of existentially empty experience. Grafting a promising storyline onto a series of humorless,
This is the book that introduced Lee Child's popular character, Jack Reacher in 1997. Reacher is a former military cop who's been made redundant by the end of the cold war. After spending his entire life in the military (Reacher grew up in a military family), he's now completely on his own, footloose and fancy-free. After spending much of his life abroad, he's wandering about the country, getting to know the U.S. up close and personal. As will continue to be the case, Reacher travels light, with
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