Review of "No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories," by Lee Child

 Review of

No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories, by Lee Child, ISBN 9780399593574

Five out of five stars

A character with a moral code but no real bounds

 While I have encountered many references to the Jack Reacher character over the years, this is the first time I have read a story where he is featured. It is clear why he appeals to so many, he is willing to put himself on the line in order to right wrongs. Reacher has a strict moral code yet will not hesitate to commit great violence in order to carry out something that will either right a wrong or keep one from happening.

 No action, including murder is beyond his list of what he will do. The stories bounce through Reacher’s life. There is one where he is a teenager in New York City when there is a blackout and chaos, looting and other crimes become the environment. Like all other situations he finds himself in, Reacher proves equal to the task of staying alive and defending others against the mobs.

 Other stories demonstrate the Reacher is also an intellectual, capable of matching the great Sherlock Holmes in looking over or experiencing a crime scene and reaching very non-obvious conclusions. In one story he matches what seems to be an ordinary attempted snatching of a woman’s bag, yet he correctly concludes that it was something much more complicated. In another story he tries to determine which of four women is a spy and the others innocent but there is evidence against them all.

 I enjoyed these stories and give them my highest praise. I now want to read more of the Reacher stories.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of "The Autumn Dead," by Ed Gorman

  Review of The Autumn Dead , by Ed Gorman, ISBN 0345356322 Four out of five stars An aging ex-cop is handed a case to retrieve a case   Jack Dwyer is an ex-cop that now works for a private security agency. Most of what he does is bust shoplifters and other petty criminals. He is a bit overweight and has few prospects to improve his situation. However, he has an interesting past that is focused on his high school years.   A woman that was a flame of his in high school and has retained her beauty suddenly pops back into his life. She offers Jack a significant amount of money to retrieve a suitcase from the house of a man she had been living with. Since she has a key and claims that the suitcase is really her property and she still has a significant sway over Jack, he agrees to take the job.   When he gets there he finds the owner unconscious from a blow on the back of the head. This is the first hint that the case is much more complex than Jack thought. Hi...
Read more

Review of "The Forty-Minute War," by Janet and Chris Morris

  Review of The Forty-Minute War , by Janet and Chris Morris, ISBN 0671559869 Three out of five stars Absurd initial premise and bad ending   This book begins with an absurd premise, not the event, but the context. A group of committed terrorists manage to acquire a nuclear weapon and a plane. The manage to fly it from Saudi Arabia to Washington D. C. where they detonate it. Distraught over the knowledge that his wife and family have been killed, the American President orders a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. They retaliate and it is all over in 40 minutes. After ordering the strike, the American President takes a gun and kills himself.   There are two reasons why this premise is absurd, one major and the other minor. The major one is that the intelligence services of the United States were aware of the nuclear weapon and had an elite anti-terrorist team on the ground ready to take out the terrorists. However, the team was given a stand-down order. Whil...
Read more

Review of "Heat," by Mike Lupica

  Review of Heat , by Mike Lupica, ISBN 9780142407578 Five out of five stars More about life than sports   Satchel Paige is arguably the all-time best baseball pitcher. One of his teammates once said, “The good lord didn’t give Satchel an arm, he gave him a whip.” Michael Arroyo was also born with what his father said was, “the arm.” Even though he is still young enough to play Little League baseball, Michael can throw an 80-mph fastball and he has excellent control. His goal is to help his team move on to the Little League World Series.   While baseball is his joy, his life is complicated. His father brought Michael and his seventeen-year-old bother Carlos with him in an escape from Cuba and they now live in New York City. Their father died suddenly of a heart attack and the boys are terrified that social services will learn of their plight and either separate them into foster care or send them back to Cuba.   With the help of some kindly neighbors, the ...
Read more