Another great novel in a great series

books:


	• Echo Burning (Jack Reacher) Lee Child Berkley Trade, 2005 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 100 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A strange blend ...

Jack Reacher novels seem to be a strange blend of PC (not too hamfisted, but it's there) and admiration for George W. Bush - someone who can size up the situation and has no qualms about taking on the bad guys. Another smart thriller with a smart hero.

Jack Reacher, Modern Day Lone Ranger

In our hearts, if we're guys, we want to be Jack Reacher. Heck, I bet even a lotta gals wouldn't mind being him. Here's a guy from nowhere, going everywhere, or is he from everywhere going nowhere. Whatever, he always seems to wind up somewhere where there is a damsel in distress, wrongs to right and plenty bad guys between him and truth, justice and the American way. Reacher, travels with only a tooth brush and sometimes not even that. He buys cheap clothes, wears them for a few days, tosses and replaces them. He has no roots, no possessions except his own sense of right and wrong. Laws? They're for other people.

ECHO BURNING opens with Reacher climbing out of the back window of a sleazy motel as the cops drive by the front. Seems he broke the nose of one of them the night before. But it's small town West Texas, hotter than a branding iron outside, and the next town is miles down the road. Reacher sticks his thumb out with visions of spending the next ten years in a Texas slammer when a pretty young woman picks him up.

What are the odds someone like that would pick up someone like him? There had to be a reason, Reacher muses. And before long she gives it to him. Her husband is in jail, gets out any day now and he's a wife beater. He beat her before he went in and she's afraid he'll take up right where he left off. She wants Reacher to kill him. Reacher says no, but agrees to kind of guard her. She brings Reacher home as a hired hand to help take care of the horses.

Big bad guys who work for the ex want Reacher to take off. The husband's brother wants Reacher to split too. The sheriff doesn't like him and it's beginning to look like the woman might have made up the wife beating bit, but Reacher senses something isn't right and that's trouble for whoever gets in his way.

Okay, I know the Reacher character is a little improbable, but I sure like him. I like the way he breezes into the picture, then fades out, a quiet Lone Ranger, only to show up in the next story, righting wrongs, making the unjust just. I like him a lot. I also like the clean and crisp writing style of Lee Child, like it lot.

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Olena knows best ;)

Read all the Lee Child novels because they are trully great. They captivate and excite, and they most definitely do not feel like a waste of time.

Hot, hot, hot

Yes, he does he mention that Texas is hot once or twice or maybe a hundred times...but guess what Texas is hot. This book is very well crafted and you never know who in the book is lying and who is telling the truth. Great characters, even the ones you're supposed to hate, and keeps you guessing (as always) until the end. This book has a different feel to it than the others but it's still the same ol' Reacher kicking butt and putting people in their place. As always, recommended.

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Another great novel in a great series

In Lee Child's fifth Jack Reacher novel, we see that even a tired old plot, when given a new spin, can be made into an excellent story.

In Echo Burning, an attractive woman picks up a hitchhiking loner and proceeds to tell him a story of marital woes; her husband abuses her and she can't escape from the marriage. Through her sad story and through seduction, she tries to get the loner to kill her husband. So far, this is a standard James Cain-like plot, but in this book, we get some twists that break from the usual pattern.

For one thing, the loner is Jack Reacher, by this time familiar to readers of the series as an ex-military policeman who now is voluntarily wandering the country, not looking for trouble but always seeming to find it. Reacher is tough and smart, and unlike most characters in this plot situation, he refuses to be seduced and will not participate in a murder. On the other hand, he does instinctually believe that abuse has occurred - and will continue again once the husband is freed from prison in a couple of days - so he does offer the woman a measure of protection.

But even then, there's more to this plot. A parallel story follows a trio of very professional killers who are also in the area and have an agenda that is unclear but is doubtlessly something that will not be good for Reacher. What's going on is more than a simple triangle of husband, wife and stranger, and these complications add an extra depth to the book.

Child is an excellent suspense writer. Of the six Reacher books I've read so far (I haven't read them completely in order), none would get less than a five-star rating. Child has the rare ability to combine perfectly two of the basic elements of the thriller: plenty of action and reasonably sophisticated plotting. As a result, Child winds up being a great storyteller and creates a book that is hard to put down from beginning to end.

With a minimal amount of continuity between novels, the Reacher series can be read in almost any order, although chronologically is always recommended. If you want to start with this one, however, you won't have any problems. As stated before, this is a five-star effort and a must-read for thriller fans.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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