Die Trying: Jack Reacher, Book 2

Wrong time wrong place, reacher helps a woman who has dropped a cane outside a laundry service, flanked by three guys with guns they are took in a car and driven away.At a meeting with the fbi the woman is an agent who is known for her prompt timing, but not today and this has her team worried when she doesn't show.In montana a plan is forming to bring together the start of a new country away from the rule of america, what does the agent have to do with this plan and what has reacher got himself involved with.

Bought for my holiday in the sun. Easy & enjoyable read, typical JR.

All the Jack Reacher books are a fabulous read and this is no exception

For me the author over explains some things to the point of getting boring like ammunition and velocity so l found myself skipping pages. But brilliant stories and great characters

Lee Child never really disappoints, always gripping.

Oh dear, here we go again. Some guy is going to upset big Jack Reader. This episode's nasty piece of work is even bigger, about two hundred pounds bigger!I give you Montana's very own spectacularly vile and massively mad separatist big - bad - Beau Borken. Apparently large chunks of the American populace are less than impressed by the result of electing a king every four years and Big Beau exploits this popular sentiment by going big time for creating his own fiefdom in leafy Montana. Aware of the fate that befell the Confederate states in past times he rather needs a bit of leverage on the powers that be to stop his ambitions going the same way as those who decided that the Union was not for them in the nineteenth century.Here's where it all goes horribly wrong. Barmy Beau instructs his mad minions to kidnap Holly Johnson, you know - the guy who was lead singer on "Frankie goes to Hollywood" in the nineteen eighties. You know "RELAX, Don't Do It".Oop's , sorry, it's not him, it's a rather attractive, lethally capable hot shot FBI agent with a limp and high ranking connections which make her a great hostage. Unfortunately (for the bad guys) JR is scooped up in the same net as Holly J.You are now on a ride where you suspend credulity and start learning something about ordinance, ballistics and how to be unspeakably violent to your fellow man. Listen and hear snapping bones, popping pistols and slicing knives. Cripes, at one point I thought I was going to suffocate during our heroes trials. Jack Reader fans will find themselves reading into the far reaches of the night in their search for "what happened next"Enough said I reckon, sleep well ;-)

This is the second of the series of books featuring all-action hero Jack Reacher. The ex US Military Policeman combines the thinking power of Sherlock Holmes, the combat skills of James Bond, and the reclusiveness of Dr Richard Kimble; all wrapped up in the physique of Hulk Hogan. You can see why Tom Cruise wanted the movie part, but not why he got it.This time Reacher is in the wrong place at the wrong time as the female stranger on the sidewalk he is chivalrously helping is about to be abducted. The kidnappers take him as well. How unlucky is that – not for Reacher but for the bad guys who now have a tiger by the tail.The plot unfolds – this is no ordinary victim and the motive is initially obscure. The purpose of the snatch slowly reveals itself and the action ebbs and flows. Periods of frenetic activity, when Reacher dishes out the muscle and the bullets, are separated by interludes of reflection as he analyses the problem and plans his strategy.The love interest is there – Reacher’s a sucker for a plucky heroine – but he’s also a gent so it is all rather restrained and in very good taste.Lee Child’s writing is packed with detail, apparently spurious but indicative of how Reacher’s mind works; as such it does not detract from the prose which is quick and easy to read. The plot, and Reacher’s capabilities, may have plausibility issues, but the whole book moves smoothly forward at a pace that leaves no time to dwell.Just sit back (or forward on the edge of your seat), read and enjoy.[See my weekly reviews each Friday on abibliodyssey.blogspot.com]

After book one comes book two. I think I slightly enjoyed book one a bit more but only a bit. This one Jack wants to take on the world. May I suggest that the suspension of reality is totally necessary to enjoy this book. But surely that is the case with most thriller fiction.Anyway, I like Lee Child's prose and pace and imagination. In the two books I have read so far it has been possible to forget the world we live in and enter that of Jack Reacher's.I never got bored or struggled to return to the book. There was always something just round the next paragraph and the possibility of new twists at any moment.I can't say that for every thriller I've read, and I've read a few. I have the third in the series on order.I can't quite give five stars yet, for me five stars represents the complete article, Jack Reacher leaves one or two big holes in the story that even suspension of reality is difficult to fill. Leave that aside and you will be able to enjoy this book as I most certainly have.