Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher, No. 12)

I have enjoyed other of Child's Reacher stories but this one I should have missed. First we go to Hope and then to Despair and Reacher keeps going back to Despair, the town. In this story Reachers keeps fighting with the poor miserable inhabitants of this town and it is just overkill and Reacher comes off as more of a thug. There are absolutely no surprises in this book except for how ill-conceived it is. The Reacher character works better when he is up against tough characters, not weak ones. The ending to me was just a, "Huh"? Why he detonates a Depleted Uraniun/TNT mega-bomb makes no sense at all. Maybe after 10 years of wandering Reacher needs a break.

Jack Reacher is truly a wonderful character, but this book loses touch with him. The ending is hurried and struck me as contrived, rather than polished, which is the norm for Lee Childs.

I'm sure it's very difficult to create new and interesting material repeatedly, but this character deserves the extra effort. As an idea, why not try bringing the character full circle with a reason and desire to stop drifting and become involved in a current real-life military or geopolitical situation - maybe working with something like Blackwater or the like? Thanks for one of the more interesting and enduring characters around! Please try again - great reads until this one - all other Reacher books are worth every minute and dime spent on them!

I am a big fan of Lee Child's books. They are usually fast moving and interesting. This title is a tad different. It was easy to put down and in fairness, it was also easy to pick back up and get on with. However...it struck me that Child wrote this book without quite know the direction it would take. The end seemed to me to be a tidy tying up of many loose ends, most of which were un-satisfying in their conclusion. A big disappointment!

I'm a Reacher fan, but this is a reach too far. There's supposed to be some military checkpoint on a public highway that just gets ignored, and some town where everyone knows what's going on but word never gets out...
Ignore for a second the anti-Iraq propaganda. The scale is simply too large to be believable. This is a comic book, not a thriller. Two stars is is probably generous, but I like the hero and the action.

After reading this book I wonder if Lee Child is done with Jack Reacher. It's been a good run for Child, but I don't know if he has anything left. This book is bad. The plot is boring, Reacher's wanderings are tedious, the bad guy is lame, the plot is ridiculous, and Child need to do some actual research about brain dramaged people and war deserters.

Don't waste your time with this book. Read an old Reacher novel and have a good time. Child needs a visit from Jack Reacher to straighten him out after this utterly disappointing effort.