Tripwire [Import] [Paperback]

Lee Child (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Press (April 15, 1999)
• ISBN-10: 0593043952
• ISBN-13: 978-0593043950
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (189 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,803,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lee Child is the #1 internationally bestselling author of thirteen Reacher thrillers, including the New York Times bestsellers The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, and the #1 bestselling Bad Luck and Trouble and Nothing to Lose. His debut, Killing Floor, won both the Anthony and the Barry awards for Best First Mystery, and The Enemy won both the Barry and the Nero awards for Best Novel. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in forty territories, and all titles have been optioned for major motion pictures. Child, a native of England and a former television director, lives in New York City, where he is at work on his fourteenth Reacher thriller, 61 Hours.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jack's Back, September 18, 2000

By 

Michael Butts (Berkeley Springs, WV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tripwire (Jack Reacher, No. 3) (Mass Market Paperback)

When you enter the world of Jack Reacher, Lee Child's indomitable ex-MP, you never know what to expect. You can certainly expect exciting action scenes, plenty of fisticuffs, and a large dose of graphic violence. "Tripwire" is no exception. The book is an excellent read. Reacher finds himself caught up in the investigation of a star helicopter pilot missing in action in Vietnam and assumed dead. The boy's parents, in grief for thirty years, send a PI to find Reacher, only to have the PI killed hours after meeting with Reacher. From that point on, the plot twists and turns, always sustaining your interest. Although the ending is easily predictable from the start, it's fun riding along with Child on the inevitable denouement. Hook Hobie is an extremely nasty villain and presents a formidable challenge to Mr. Reacher. His henchman are likewise pretty despicable. Some of the supporting characters are really well written, particularly the victimized Marilyn Stone and her real-estate agent friend, Sheryl. Marilyn displays quite a bit of spit and vinegar and loyalty to her milktoast husband, and plays a hard game with Hobie, for a while. Sheryl, meanwhile, displays a tremendous amount of loyalty to her friend.

A great book but some additional points of concern or discussion. I have found it hard to accept Jack Reacher's obvious inability to function "normally" in the world. A drifter at heart, he doesn't seem to want to belong in anyone's world----he falls in love at the drop of a hat, but is not willing to make any commitments, always seeming self-centered in his inability to be "tied down." He doesn't have a job, he's never had a home of his own, and he avoids reality as it were a plague. While this makes for a dynamic and "legendary" type of hero, it leaves Reacher the man hollow and almost apathetic. Finally, in "Tripwire," his romance with Jodie awakens Reacher to these facts and as the book comes to a close, he starts acting like a human being, thinking of settling down, having a house, etc. I'm sure "Running Blind" will pick this up and hopefully develop it. Jack Reacher is a great character, and I like him, but if he becomes a little more human, it will make him even more likeable.

Disappointments: What happens to Marilyn, Chester, and William Curry. They are pivotal victims in the climactic scene, and at its resolution, we don't know what happens to them. The Stones part in the novel are integral to the plot, and we come to care about what happens---especially to Marilyn. This lack of resolution is downright criminal, Lee!

Also, where did Hobie get his contacts in Hawaii and Hanoi? It's never explained---they just exist. Hobie doesn't seem to have a "worldwide" scam going, just a local one.

And what about Tony, his mysterious "is he gay?" aide? What is their relationship, and how did it begin? Tony intimates he's known Hobie for a long time, but there's never any connection between the two. Tony obviously cares a great deal for Hobie, but there is no development of this relationship.

Maybe minor quibbles, but I feel valid ones.

At any rate, if you've followed Jack Reacher this far, as I have, you will undoubtedly want to read "Running Blind," which I will start soon!

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Early Jack Reacher Has Room for Improvement, September 15, 2006

By 

John R. Linnell (New Gloucester, ME United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tripwire (Jack Reacher, No. 3) (Mass Market Paperback)

Unlike most people, I found Lee Child and Jack Reacher only a short while ago and after reading the two most recent Reacher novels, decided to go back and read the earlier ones. This was the first of the earlier ones I have ventured through and I must admit that the ones I read previously were way ahead of this one. The Reacher character is still there. Tough, resourceful and finding trouble at every turn.

However, the story dragged at first as one tried to figure out how two disparite story lines would finally connect and then as it picked up only some of the story was completed.

It's still well written for what is there but this is another author that has clearly gotten his act together as time has progressed. I am not put off however. and will continue to read the earlier efforts and I would recomend that to anyone who has found and enjoyed the character.

25 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Yeah, but he can't iron a shirt, October 20, 2000

By 

Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tripwire (Jack Reacher, No. 3) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the third novel by Lee Child featuring his tough guy hero, Jack Reacher, the previous two being DIE TRYING and KILLING FLOOR. Jack, once a hard-boiled Major in the U.S. Army's Military Police, has been (in all three novels) drifting from here to there to no place in particular, and getting enmeshed in unusual situations that force him to fight assorted scum. His modus operandi makes him a worthy drinking buddy and soulmate of the Clint Eastwood 1970's screen character, Dirty Harry.

In TRIPWIRE, Jack inherits from Gen. Leon Garber (ret.), his former Army commanding officer recently deceased, the task of tracking down for an aged and ailing couple the fate of their pilot son, Victor Hobie, still MIA many years after the Vietnam war in which he flew helicopters. Perceived by the reader, but unbeknownst to Jack, Hobie is now a sadistic, extremely vicious, burn-scarred amputee now operating in the Big Apple as a high end loan shark to financially desperate CEOs. (Or is he?) His specialty is torturing and killing the family members of his debtors should they default. One sweet teddy bear.

Having read the previous two Reacher yarns some time ago, my memory may be suspect. However, I recall the action in those two being more constant and sustained. In TRIPWIRE, the plot develops with more serenity (such as it is), with the tension for the reader being the knowledge that Jack and Hobie will eventually face off against one another - the classic confrontation between the Guy Wearing the White Hat vs. the Guy Wearing the Black Hat. The only thing lacking is the famous Eastwood squint.

Being sufficiently Neanderthal to have loved all of the Dirty Harry films, it's no surprise that Reacher has swaggered into my pantheon of fictional heroes. Child's fourth thriller in the series, RUNNING BLIND, is definitely on my Wish List. However, I remain puzzled and just a little disappointed that Jack, at 38 and supremely self sufficient, remains without a clue when it comes for him to do his ... laundry. I'll bet even Dirty Harry knew how to press and fold a shirt - those were the days when my heroes were made of iron.