Nothing To Lose: (Jack Reacher 12)

My first, perhaps my last, Jack Reacher novel. A ridiculous 'hero' who's diet of fast food and coffee provides him with enough energy to walk 50 miles in a day and defeat 6 men in a bar brawl. He gets away with smashing up two police officers, and their cars, and breaking into private property; and even though he doesn't change his underwear, he manages to get the girl. All in the best possible cause, of course: doing what's right, for justice, and taking no s***t.Why do men love this stuff?Better by far to read an Elmore Leonard western (Hombre for instance), or a Raymond Chandler thriller where characters are more nuanced, plots are more sensible, and anti-heroes more realistic.

One town is friendly and cared for, its neighbour unwelcoming and rundown. It also hides secrets. Reacher gets thrown out and with the help of the police chief in the friendly town, decides to find out why.Usual twists and turns, love interest and coffee drinking, eventually lead to the inevitable conclusion, as Reacher puts his life on the line to bring his own brand of rough justice to the bad guys.Enjoyable and engaging, well described and plotted, with a seemingly moral twist.Not the best of the Reacher series (some obvious plot holes for example), but definitely a good read if you like action adventure thrillers.

Hope and Despair - two small towns in Colorado. Jack Reacher wants a cup of coffee, but the waitress ignores him. The other customers ignore him. Then a bunch of deputies show up with the intention of throwing him out of town. But Reacher is no pushover and he’s more than a little curious to know what the town is trying to hide.This is the twelfth book in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series. Having been a fan for a few years, I’ve read the previous eleven, though it’s taken me a while to get to this one. For reasons I can’t fathom Nothing to Lose didn’t grab my attention as much as usual and I was a good way through before it did. However, one thing we can rely on with Mr Child is that he tells a good tale and the denouement was as satisfying as ever.Not as much action as we normally get from Reacher, but a good solid story, nevertheless.

This reads a little bit like a pastiche of a Jack Reacher novel. There were sections in which I - gasp! - started to find Reacher's indestructibility and inexplicable fitness slightly irritating. I also am starting to find that a guy who doesn't use the internet or read any books who is nevertheless knowledgable about anything and everything is actually a bit of a stretch too far. The fact that a homeless, violent man without a great deal of social skills is also utterly beguiling to the opposite sex stretches my incredulity even further.These niggles about the bedrock of the Jack Reacher universe have never been an issue before but in this book they are - the book feels stark (in comparison to the earlier books) as the plot is stretched over too many pages and Reacher seems to go from A to B and B to A more times than I care to remember. He doesn't seem to have enough motivation or conviction to undertake the 'mission' and one rather feels that neither he or Lee Child's heart is in it. Because of this I felt myself picking at the seams of Jack Reacher as a character. Which is not good.Lee Child novels are not high art. They are not especially well written. But they are written in the spirit of the victorian 'closed room' puzzles and although there is a sense of that here there is none of what makes Jack Reacher novels great: that despite his obviously terrible first impression, Jack Reacher is rooted in the great tradition of American investigators; always way smarter than he first appears as well as embracing the great American road trip. Maybe America can only be evoked properly by a Brit, but Reacher novels are like a travelogue around America and Americana by a modern day hero who uses his brains and then his brawn to make things right.But I got none of that in this book. Roll on the next one!

This is my twelfth Jack Reacher book. I will continue to read the series as new ones comes out. In this one Reacher is himself but there are some annoying details that makes the story a little harder than usual to accept. The Bad guys are more than clumsy and stupid. A town that suddenly turns into zombies? The Manager of a huge industry that also micro-manages everything? A great number of tanks destroyed by IEDs? A woman that thinks Reacher is a "jerk" but still sleeps with him? Ok, the last item might not be so far fetched...Reacher himself is always super strong but never works out and do not care what he eats. I have never in all the books I have read found him reading books but he still know a lot of stuff that can only be the product of studying.Ok, I also read a lot of Sience Fiction so who am I to complain? I just hope that Reacher will meet some real smart crooks in the future and have a real challenge.Some reviewers feels that Reacher has gone political in this one since he has views on the war in Iraq. There are some sentences that feels a little unlike the old Reacher but maybe it is more the views of Mr Lee Child and not "Reacher". The Analogy to the Vietnam war feels somewhat strange. The US Army are all volunteers but the old Vietnam army were draftees. If you join the army as a volunteer you know you have no excuses.