TCCDM Dig & Flip: Tripwire - Lee Child (1999)
Tripwire
by Lee Child
(1999)
Paperback, 581 pages
NO SPOILERS:
Tripwire is the third novel in the Jack Reacher series, though you don't have to read them in order. I certainly haven't. I just grab one off a shelf and kick it. And I have become seasoned to our all-powerful coffee-drinking hero, Jack Reacher. Knowing that Reacher is always going to out-think and out-fight the bad guys in the end allows me to curl up with my own cup of "Chock Full…" and enjoy all the ass-kickery. Lee Child's page-turning concoctions are so much fun and just perfect to cleanse the palate between the more challenging novels I have on my reading list.
And that's not a knock on Lee Child, the brainstormer of all these page-turners. I luv'em. I mean, if it was easy, everyone would be mega-successful. Here, Jack Reacher has been keeping it on the down-low, digging swimming pools in Florida, when he learns a stranger's been asking around about him. And then the stranger ends up dead. So Reacher decides to track down what the guy's business was all about. The trail leads him back to New York City and a curious list of MIAs from Vietnam. And so the game is afoot.
Lee Child delivers all the good stuff you've come to expect. Action, danger, thrills, and suspense, all in clever, unexpected ways. Fun, but not cheap. I suppose there's a little more romance-romance going on than is truly necessary, and that slows down the pacing, but it is what it is. Whaddygonnado? Heroes and villains. Place your bets. Outta five, I think Reacher would probably give Tripwire three and three-quarter coffee beans, but that's just pickin' nits.
"Helicopters" - Barenaked Ladies / "Maroon" (2000)
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