Burning Echo: Book Review
A Jack Reacher series.
I really like the first book, where the author, Lee Child, introduced a no-nonsense character that’s willing to bend things to uphold ‘justice’. That character was Jack Reacher. He was also methodical and thorough, always taking precautions and stacking odds on his side. It was entertaining and in certain ways, insightful.
Hence I was excited to read this book. It was however the 5th book in the series, so I expected that there would be quite a gap in development of Jack Reacher. The introduction alluded that Reacher was dumped by his girlfriend, but other than that, he seems the same like the first book. Almost.
He seems a bit less clever and more worried. In the first book, he went Rambo against a whole team of trained guards, but in this book, a whole chapter was about a fight against two farm helpers whose only skill was holding onto rodeos.
There was also the bit where Reacher was duped by Carmen AND the district attorney. In the last chapter where Reacher was looking for the bad guys motel, he monologued something about using his feelings and not thinking logically. Yet he succeeded. It feels like a fluke and diminishes all the deductions and observations. Also to tie loose ends, the side kick simply told the police that she did all the actions, so that Jack Reacher doesn’t come up in the report. When asked why, she answered it is easier that way, since she’s a lawyer. What?!
Don’t get me wrong, the book is quite entertaining but in the end it feels like another episode of an action series. An enjoyable read but not stimulating much.
Thank you for reading.
