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Right on, with a tough, inventive character you can relate to and root for. Hallelujah. The story wandered, as Reacher made repetitive trips back into Despair. Recommend: Avoid this turkey. I absolutely do not buy the conspiracy format, and would never buy another mystery novel which tried to force this on me. Nothing to Lose was the first Reacher novel I read.
It had to be a failure of imagination, or the need to make a hurried publication date. A whole new world of mysteries to read. It was fair along to being my last, when I read the review feature on Amazon and found this book is rated, by a long shot, as the worst of the Reacher novels.For the first 100 pages or so, the story grabbed you, as the mystery of Despair and what lay beyond was laid. After reading the reviews on Amazon, I then bought and read Persuader, and then Tripwire. Start with any other of the Reacher novels, and you will be treated to real leave-the-lights-on reading, which I heartily recommend What a disappointment then that what follows did not take advantage of this great foundation.
Most disturbing, however, and a real turnoff to this reader, was the heavy dose of leftist politics which tinged and ruined (for me) the story.
Some readers have dropped their rating from five starts to one. They are to the general effect that some ground troops are cynical about the war's righteousness. I don't entirely understand the psychology of authors who start at the top of their game and continue writing series stories at the rate of once a year, never tiring, never stretching themselves into any new direction whatever. The villain is a bit like a James Bond villain, but his way of deflecting suspicion by letting Reacher examine his entire operation is interesting and well done.
This is a fine Reacher novel, somewhere among the seven best out of the present thirteen. So I've raised mine from four to five. This is a very slightly more intellectual Reacher novel than most, maybe five percent calmer, brilliantly done and with new elements of mystery and contemplation. It's deliberately slow-paced, and that's clear from the first two chapters.
The Reacher stories never aimed at plausibility in the first place, and readers must be incredibly thirsty for action who say they could barely get through a novel in which Reacher fights bullies at six-to-one odds, three times climbs an unclimbable wall, and explodes an amazing amount of acreage. Don't be afraid to take this book on a plane; it will do the job just as well as any of the others. Reacher's opinions on the Iraq war occur on at most three pages and occupy at most ten sentences. This notion has some relevance to a subplot, but is infinitely far from making the novel political, and it is not at all inconsistent with the Reacher who quit his own military career in part because of a similar cynicism, mixed, as military cynicism often is, with real idealism about his career in general.
Riiiiiiight. There is a bookshelf in my office where people leave books they've already read and don't want to keep so that others may enjoy them. As a matter of fact I almost felt bad putting it back on the shelf without some type of note (i.e.: DONT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS GARBAGE.). Even though I've never read the others I'm hard pressed to believe his publisher would let him get away with TWO novels this bad.
Shame since some of the other books have mych better reviews. Anyway if you're a Reacher fan, just skip this one and pretend it never happened, if your looking to read your first Reacher novel I can confidentlly say pick another one to start with. I've never read any of the other Reacher novels and after this mess I doubt I ever will. Ick.
This morning I got to work and had 5 pages left, instead of standing outside and finishing up I chose to go inside it's that bad. She's supposed to be a cop instead Childs is having her commit all types of crimes and then hooking up with a homeless guy who's been wearing the same clothes AND underwear for days. Well let me tell you, I KNOW why the former owner of this book didn't feel inclined to keep it. And when she's not lending him her car she's breaking and entering WITH him.
Plus the lady cop whose just willing to lend out her car to some homeless dude. I kept putting the book down and not really caring to pick back up. The plot is very repetative and unbelievable, I don't care what kind of super human this Reacher guy is, no way is he walking away from these situations time and time again.
kinda stretches the imagination that both things would be happening in a town of 2300--perhaps a subplot that didn't need to be included.(3) No toothpaste or deodorant. If they had been on-site, they would have kept Reacher from having easy access (and there would have been no book).(2) The underground railway for the deserters also went through the same town. how does he attract the ladies. totally agree with the other low-star ratings--this was not up to Child's previous high-levels of writing.What was really nagging me about this was:(1) The Military Police post that was (supposedly). protecting the demolition yard was 10 miles outside of town--how were they supposed to protect it from so far away.
Hence this review.In Nothing to Lose, the prose flows very well. In fact, he may be eager to speed up the process by acting boldly on his own.Thurman also owns a huge metal plant just outside of Dismal. Lee Child's novel, Nothing to Lose, seems to be an allegory based upon the contrast between Hope and Despair, for the two central towns in this book have these very names. I picked up Child's most recent (and much stronger) work, Gone Tomorrow, and finished it in a couple of days.
Read it and find out if that's literal or figurative. Hope is a pleasant place with pleasant people, like Officer Vaughan, whose husband is in a permanent vegetative state due to a severe brain injury suffered while fighting in Iraq. Are illegal chemicals used in the process of recycling military vehicles that are blown apart in Iraq, with the scraps shipped to Dismal. No one wants to end up in despair. military deserters to Canada.
It's his feudal fiefdom. Is Thurman a man who practices what he preaches, or is he a dangerous fanatic.It all builds to an explosive conclusion. The challenge here is Jerry Thurman, lay preacher for End Times Church in Dismal. This inspired me to finish Nothing to Lose. I had weeks earlier started reading Nothing to Lose, but I set it aside after about a hundred pages due to flagging interest. And again. Many people spend their lives shuttling between hope and despair. Thurman is obsessed with the Book of Revelation and its prediction of the Apocalypse.
Child is a master at describing minutiae. Problem is, a lot of people at the plant and in town are seriously ill. Not pleasant at all. (Pharmaceutical companies love this). In fact, Thurman owns the whole town. There's a weird aiplane ride. And again. A lot of driving around off road in an old pickup truck and a police cruiser.
We get a detailed description of many meals and many cups of coffee. Of course, hope is the better place. A romantic fling with Officer Vaughan, who later confesses to her husband, who has the "IQ of a goldfish." Reacher pounding into submission small and large groups of hostile men with his fists and brutal street-fighting skills.The plot is just too convoluted. The bachelor's dream. A lot of crawling around in the dark. Could it be the secretive metal plant.
Climbing of unclimbable walls. Is there a secret operation involving Iranian vehicles that are blown apart in Iraq in order to provoke a war with Iran.
What about the smuggling of U.S. He's been out of the Army for several years and, on a limited budget, he travels about, looking for adventure and never turning away from a challenge, or a low-cost, but filling, meal.
It mostly concerns what happens at Thurman's plant. They are small towns located next to each other in a remote and desolate region in Colorado.Child's trademark hero, Jack Reacher, literally spends a lot of time wandering between Hope and Despair and back again.
Reacher appoints himself to find out. We learn that Reacher will typically wear the same set of clothes for several days and then, rather than clean them, he'll just pitch them in the trash and buy another set.
Dismal is dreary and menacing. The central character, Reacher, is a veteran of thirteen years' service as an officer in the MP.
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