Good storytelling but a major gaffe in the premise.

books:


	• Tripwire (Jack Reacher) Lee Child Berkley Trade, 2005 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Reacher at his best

This is Lee Child cooking up a brilliant reacher classic when the formula was working at its best.Ex-military policemen Jack Reacher is lying low in Key West, digging up swimming pools by hand. He is not best pleased when a private detective starts asking questions about him, but when the detective, Costello, turns up dead with his fingertips sliced off, Reacher realises it is time to move on. Soon (as in Child's two previous excellent thrillers Die Trying and Killing Floor) Reacher is up to his neck in lethal trouble involving a vicious Wall Street manipulator, a mysterious woman (of course) and the livelihood of a whole community. Even the fate of soldiers missing in action in Vietnam is stirred into the brew. But this is not a book by one of the new breed of US thriller writers: Child prides himself that, as an Englishman, he writes American thrillers that are utterly convincing in milieu and toughness of action, without a trace of English sensibility. This new one is no exception-- every bit as lean and compulsive as its predecessors, it also builds on the freshest aspect of those books: Reacher may be a tough, epic hero, but he always remains human and vulnerable. As a writer of thrillers myself, it is difficult to get lost in someones work, but this is great read.Here's one for that long plane or train journey.

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Good storytelling but a major gaffe in the premise.

Just finished Tripwire and Child is a pretty good storyteller but the premise of the book contains a major gaffe: the hook-man supposedly got his ill-gotten money out of Vietnam in greenbacks. Having been in Vietnam in 1971-1972, I can tell you there were not then nor had there been for many years any greenbacks allowed among US Armed forces personnel: we were paid and used only MPC's: Military Payment Certificates. It is exactly to prevent black-market currency activity that the military did not allow US paper money in the country. To further confound black marketeers, the Army would occasionally change the scrip: all bases would shut down and each soldier would bring in any MPC's he had on him and exchange them for a new series. After that, the old money was useless. There is a story probably at least a bit true that after one such operation, a group of businessmen in Saigon approached the military attempting to make a deal on over $700,000.00 (think 3.5 mil in today's money) in now worthless old MPC's.

I cannot believe Child's editors didn't run this past a Vietnam veteran who could have set them straight.

I will give his other stories a chance. Lee, just don't get too ideal-romance, or you'll be known as the male Sandra Brown.

Dave Blocher

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Tripwire

This is an outstanding book. I have read all of the Jack Reacher novels and he is one of my favorite characters. Very well thought out plot and a page turner. I would definitely recommend it.

Brilliant Reacher book

Another absolute classic Jack Reacher book, brilliant reading by the master again. If you enjoyed this then try Soft Target by Conrad Jones it will give any other thriller a run for its money I thought it was similar to Lee Child stories. A brilliant new Author and maybe the new Lee Child !!!