BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE [Import] [Paperback]

Lee Child (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Press; Airport / Export e. edition (2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0593057007
• ISBN-13: 978-0593057001
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (228 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,043,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Urban cowboy and his posse seek justice., May 15, 2007

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bad Luck and Trouble (Jack Reacher, No. 11) (Hardcover)

There are many reasons to admire Jack Reacher, the taciturn hero of Lee Child's "Bad Luck and Trouble." He is a low-maintenance individual who travels with just his passport, ATM card, and toothbrush. He is incredibly strong and an expert in weaponry and hand-to-hand combat, and will go out of his way to protect the people he likes and respects. Reacher is also intelligent, intuitive, and creative; by thinking out of the box, he usually finds the answers to whatever questions are puzzling him.

In "Bad Luck and Trouble," Reacher has a reunion of sorts with three of his buddies from the army, Frances Neagley, Karla Dixon, and David O'Donnell. They reunite because of a tragic event: Calvin Franz, who worked with them years ago in the military police, was thrown out of a helicopter in the California desert after suffering unspeakable torture. The victim left behind a wife and little boy. Three other MPs from the same special investigations unit, Jorge Sanchez, Tony Swan, and Manuel Orozco, have disappeared, as well. Reacher and his remaining ex-colleagues band together to find out what happened to these men and why. He is also plotting revenge: "There are dead men walking, as of right now. You don't throw my friends out of helicopters and live to tell the tale." The slogan that Reacher and the others live by is: "You do not mess with the special investigators."

Lee Child's Reacher is a modern day cowboy, who generally travels alone from town to town, minding his own business. Yet, somehow, "bad luck and trouble" always manage to find him. This time, in a refreshing variation on Child's usual formula, Reacher takes his place as the commanding officer of a tightly knit and focused team, each member making his or her own invaluable contribution to the investigation. Neagley is smart and tough, and she has plenty of money to bankroll their operation. Dixon is a forensic accountant with a sharp mathematical mind, equal to Reacher's. O'Donnell is fast, powerful, and fearless. This formidable foursome is pitted against a group of ruthless adversaries who always seem to be one step ahead of them.

Child has created a cadre of well-drawn heroes, and the fast-paced action never flags. The terse, often dryly humorous dialogue is enormously entertaining. In addition, some nifty mental puzzles are thrown in to challenge the investigators' powers of deduction; brawn without brains just doesn't cut it in today's world. On the downside, the villains are one-dimensional and the finale is a bit too pat to be believed, even in a fantasy such as this. Still, this novel is great escapist fun; it will have wide audience appeal among long-time Reacher aficionados, and it will probably earn the author a host of new fans, as well.

64 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "You Don't Step on Superman's Cape...", May 27, 2007

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bad Luck and Trouble (Jack Reacher, No. 11) (Hardcover)

In these days of "metrosexuals" and men getting facials at a spa, it is refreshing to count on Lee Child's annual installment of the ex-Army mayhem-man Jack Reacher, who'd have his fingernails pulled out with pliers before being manicured. And back he is, folding toothbrush in his pocket, ready as always to rid the world of another annoyance.

But this time around, the stoic loner Reacher has some company. Frances Neagley, essentially the female version of Reacher and former member of his US Army Special Investigations team, contacts our nomadic hero through an arcane bank transaction, the first in a string of mental deductions that would leave Holmes and Watson with jaws agape. Neagley tells of the brutal death of Calvin Frantz, another former member of their elite unit, sending Reacher, Neagley and their remaining colleagues to a southern California rendezvous solving the mystery and avenging the murder. The plot thickens and as other members of the team go missing, and Reacher and company find themselves embroiled in super-secret government operations and international terrorism.

As far as escapist thriller fiction, "Bad Luck and Trouble" is about as good as it gets. If you don't overanalyze or rationalize, you can kick back and savor Reacher's unique brand of Zen violence told in Child's no-nonsense, rapid-fire prose. But measured against Child's high standards, I found this one sub-par. Reacher's savant-like mathematical talents, while necessary to set the plot in motion, were strained at first and a burden before long. And I found myself liking Reacher less as a team leader as I have as the lone wolf maverick, and the group dynamics felt forced and frayed. But I quibble. "Bad Luck and Trouble" is a must-read, another hard-core action page-turner that will add "don't mess with special investigations" as another line in that thing about "spitting into the wind."

39 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "We investigate. We prepare. We execute.", May 18, 2007

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bad Luck and Trouble (Jack Reacher, No. 11) (Hardcover)

Advanced mathematics play a significant role in the latest Jack Reacher novel, a coded formula that holds the clues Reacher and his term use to backtrack the death of one of their friends, a part of the elite military cabal that performed successful missions for the government, but are now returned to civilian life. Years have passed since the eight have been in contact and now one of them is dead. Loyalty and shared expertise are key to the unit and when Calvin Franz meets a violent death, one by one the remaining few answer the call, their number seemingly reduced by four by the time they go into action. Reacher is the first to respond, locating Frances Neagley in LA. Later, Karla Dixon and Dave O'Donnell arrive to learn of the probable fate of the others. Unraveling this mystery requires all their considerable skills, the experienced team once believing themselves invincible. Dodging post-9/11 security, the four ex-soldiers come face to face with some hard truths about the directions their lives have taken since the old days.

No matter what elaborate scheme is behind the plot of a Reacher novel; Child makes sense of even the wildest tale. Reacher's appeal, and by extension that of his comrades, is their outside-the-law mentality and ability to out-maneuver and out-plan even the cleverest villain. Violence is endemic to Child's popular series, Jack Reacher strolling through circumstances that would fell a lesser man. That's his appeal: large, smart, ruthless. The formula works just as well here, if a little drier for the reliance on mathematical projections to uncover clues from LA to Las Vegas. But this novel is new, not vintage Reacher, a kinder, gentler, less frequently violent man than in the other titles (The Killing Floor, Die Trying). I don't find the Jack Reacher in Bad Luck and Trouble nearly as compelling and hope he hasn't lost his edge, returning next time to the macho style that so defines the series. Luan Gaines/2007.