Jim's Books

Without Fail

Lee Child

Without Fail
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ISBN: 9780553813432

Description

Jack Reacher walks alone. No job, no ID, no last known address. Doesn't want to be found. But he never turns down a plea for help, especially from a woman. Now a woman tracks him down; a woman serving at the very heart of US power. A woman who needs Reacher's native cunning, surly charm and controlled aggression to help her with her new job: putting herself in the line of fire; protecting the Vice-President of the United States, but someone wants the VP dead.

Reviewed on 2nd March 2011

In this novel, Jack Reacher takes on his biggest challenge yet when he is called in to protect the Vice President elect from a mysterious death threat.

I started this book wondering whether Child had jumped the shark - why do authors feel they can only get readers by giving their characters figures of national importance to interact with? Clancy did it with his Ryan novels and now Child is too - the previous book was just as good focussing on a small family in the south.

As it is however this book moved beyond that feeling once things got going. Reacher's character becomes more three dimensional than ever before and a lot of the narrative is more about him and his relationships than it ever is about the politician. The story moves at a good pace, and there was only one moment where there was a clue so obvious it broke the fourth wall.

I thought at the start that I was starting to drift away from Reacher's adventures but Child has proved that he's growing as an author and able to develop his character into something more than a moral killer. I'm looking forward to more.

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