Tripwire
ISBN: 97805538118
Description
Digging swimming pools by hand in Key West, Florida, Jack Reacher is as tanned and as fit as he's ever been. A local girl says he looks like a condom filled with walnuts. Being invisible has become a habit. He doesn't want to be found. So when a private detective comes nosing around and asking questions, Reacher is not pleased. Especially when he later finds the guy dead. With his fingertips sliced off.
Reviewed on 20th October 2010
This third entry in Child's Jack Reacher series starts well. The character is the same one we know from the earlier novels, and his situation is familiar. From there however, it takes a different path to the past, and provides Reacher with some character development which he has lacked before.
While the story is as violent and restrainedly sexual as before, the plot itself seems less well defined, and the motivation of the characters is quite vague throughout, which means the story is less gripping than previously. After a detective sent to locate him dies, Reacher sets out to complete the final mission of his mentor - to find out what happened to a soldier lost in Vietnam.
I'm in two minds about this. From one perspective it's nice that Reacher has grown and he is now more than the two dimensional super-man that he has been before, however the direction seems a little out of character, and it doesn't feel like the changes are anything that is going to stick into the next book, which just makes them feel like window dressing for an ill-defined plot.
Overall though, it was an entertaining read. I wouldn't describe it as a page-turner though, mostly because I didn't find the characters believable and the events that interesting.a
