Jack Reacher: Running Blind – Book Review

I like Lee Child’s writing. The sentences are short and curt and the dialogue are quite smart, without being too scripted. The book seems real enough. The problem is however with the storyline.

Spoiler Alert.

Jack Reacher is supposedly roped in to ‘help’ FBI with an investigation, where the serial killer targets ex-army who suffered sexual harassments. That’s a misdirection though, created by the ‘clever’ killer. I can accept all the elaborate schemes, except for the fact that the killer used hypnosis to kill the victims. Even if I believe that hypnotism works, how can someone hypnotise a person to try and kill themselves. And not one, but five persons! And this is not hypnotised in the sense give-me-your-money, but the directions are so convoluted. The victims were asked to carry 10 gallons of paint, open and pour the paint, undress and then dip into the bathtub.

Let’s say that’s possible. Let’s say the criminal/mastermind can do that. With that skill she could do a lot of things, but instead what she (yes spoiler alert, it’s a she) did was she tried to kill her stepsister in order to rob her inheritance. Why would you do that? If she could have hypnotised her stepsister to kill herself, I’m pretty sure she could have made her stepsister give her all her money.

But let’s say she hates her stepsister and wanted her to still die. Why didn’t she make her suffer instead of having such a calm death. There is so much things that is illogical (notwithstanding the hypnotism part), that the story doesn’t make sense. Child tried so hard to misdirect and confuse the reader that he was not clear of the story himself.

Talking about misdirection, there are two, no, three point of views in the story. There is Reacher, and then there is the perpetrator, written in italics. Later in the book, it seemed that the narrative in italics were actually from two different characters. Ugh! They’re jumbled up together just to confuse and misdirect the reader, only to be resolved by a captain who said, “He’s not your guy,” because he is amputated and sits on a wheelchair.

I am simply annoyed with the book. An entertaining read during the first half but very disappointed with the ending.

Thank you for reading.