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I read the poor reviews and waited a long time to get this one, worried that I wouldn't like it. Nevertheless, I did enjoy this book more than the usual novels from other authors. Recently, I picked up a used copy and read it today. I recognize all of the criticism and agree that this particular novel wasn't up to the usual quality I enjoy from the Jack Reacher novels. If you are a Jack Reacher fan then you should still read this book with a grain of salt. I enjoyed it and thought it was worth the time.
I personally don't care for the stereotypical "right winged zealot" that is ultimately evil and wishes to destroy mankind. His other stories were much more original and engaging. "Nothing to Lose" would have been better titled "Nothing to Gain" by reading it.
Reacher seems to be devolving into a soulless thug who no longer is concerned so much with coming to the aid of the defenseless as with actively looking for trouble. Oh, the suspense.Then there's the oft-mentioned leftist drivel in support of army deserters and against all-things Bush-Cheney. I couldn't agree more with the preponderance of reviews here. He starts a bar fight against six beefy townsmen, which he handily wins with a round of furious elbow strikes, which Lee Child appears to regard as having cruise missile accuracy, since Reacher resorts to them more than to his fists. He was human and compelling once. He endlessly circles and infiltrates Despair searching for something - seemingly, anything - to spark his rage against the Machine. We're way out-dirtying Dirty Harry here.Meanwhile, back in Hope, whose only inhabitants seem to be a lady cop, a drygoods salesmen, and a couple of diner waitresses, Reacher drinks more coffee, repeatedly shags the cop (whose first name he never bothers to ascertain and whose soldier husband is in a permanent vegetative coma), and works out elaborate crime hypotheses by pushing condiment holders around on a table top.
No way does that compute. NOTHING TO LOSE was a slack, ill-conceived mess. A violent vigilante with a penchant for what he deems acceptable homicide gets squeamish over a little water-boarding. Toward that end, he wanders into a secure facility without any legal authority and demands Answers. Reacher then caps his evening with the home invasion of an elderly couple, plunks himself down in their living room, and intimidates the wife into making him coffee - black, no sugar. Yet we could see this schizophrenic mix way back in THE ENEMY, wherein Child takes a thinly-disguised swipe at Dick Cheney shortly before having Reacher dispatch a colonel whose manners annoy him with a bullet to the forehead.If it isn't time to give Reacher a dishonorable discharge from crime fiction (he CAN be hugely diverting in his mayhem), it's long past time for his creator to retire the following personal tics :the endless, purposeless vagrancy; so little respect for women that only their surnames are worthy of notice and they rarely survive even as a memory in later books; the clothes disposal gambit and the total absence of hygienic amenities (toothpaste, mouthwash); the obsessive concern with arithmetic and geographic detail, so that climbing a wall becomes a Euclidian ordeal (at least for the reader); the intuitive crime-solving from barely discernable scraps of ephemera that makes Sherlock Holmes look mentally disabled; and, most irritatingly, Reacher's casual takeover of every police authority and crime scene he encounters.In short, it's time for Jack Reacher to do some growing up. Lose the sangfroid and the brutal, asocial nihilism, and he can be again
Who says sociopaths aren't entertaining.If Reacher bugs you, try Thomas Perry's Jane Whitefield series - you'll probably like her since her sociopathic behavior is rooted in her heritage so it's OK. So, yep, most of the one- and two-star reviewers are correct, but then they probably think James Bond is not entertaining.
And that's Jack Reacher who does not try to subvert or trick the system with false IDs and such. He takes the bus, pays cash, buys new clothing when the old stuff wears out.
OK, so Lee Child isn't exactly Tolstoy or Dickens, and his hero is a misanthropic thug, but who hasn't daydreamed about being a non-person, wandering about using wits, wiles, and fists to right injustices and settle scores. I find it a guilty pleasure and enjoy watching Reacher get himself into and out of difficult circumstances, trying to make things right.
No family, no friends, no entanglements, no regrets - a strong, self-reliant character who floats on the surface, diving deeper only when he feels an injustice has been done. The premise is strained, no doubt, but the writing is just good enough to make it readable.
If you don't much care for Bond, Reacher won't please you much either, for Reacher is the crude American cousin to Bond. The irony light is on here, folks, so no outrage at my aparent insensitivity.
After getting my Kindle and then reading great reviews on the Reacher series I started reading and tore through the first nine in no time. Other reviewers have addressed the particulars like where are the "real-world deserters" and why are the terroists always the Christians in novels, but not so in the real world. We get it, Child is a leftist.
Just a single line, but a statement nonetheless. Filled with ridiculous politics and certain to turn off the majority of Reacher fans. But then in the last novel we learn that Reacher makes an instant judgement that PETA must be a great organization.
Fine, but kinda weird if you ask me for the character he created. A warning signal that the politics were soon to follow. "Nothing to Lose" lets it all out.
Leftists are always so certain of their ideals that real facts never get in their way. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
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