Customer Reviews

Without Fail (Jack Reacher, No. 6)

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

England born, New York based thriller writer Lee Child has made an impact on his chosen genre with his first five novels. Much of the acclaim he has received is undoubtedly due to the creation of his memorable protagonist, Jack Reacher. Jack is a cool, canny and collected former military cop who needs all his skills and know-how in "Without Fail."

A female Secret Service agent comes to Reacher with an astounding request: "I want to hire you to assassinate the Vice President of the United States." According to her this is the only way to test the security system she has in place to protect the newly elected V.P.

When she makes this request, she does leave out one significant detail: a team of accomplished killers have already drawn a bead on the Vice President. They, of course, are not aware of Reacher's involvement.

Child has spun a complex, unsettling thriller that will satisfy the most ardent suspense fiction fan.

- Gail Cooke

Some people want Vice President-elect, Brook Armstrong dead. They tried to kill him in September. They had the silencer on the gun and the perfect location but the bullet missed. No one in the crowd heard the gun shot. Armstrong's hair stirred as the bullet moved past him but he thought it was nothing more than the wind. The attempt was a failure and no one noticed. They would try again. Soon. ...

So begins Lee Child's newest and best book to date, WITHOUT FAIL. ...This is the sixth in the series.

WITHOUT FAIL takes the readers behind the scenes of the Secret Service and shows us how they react to situations, why they do what they do to protect the people they're hired to protect, and we also get to see the measures they go through to do their job successfully.

Lee Child's books get better and better with each addition to the series. WITHOUT FAIL is a real page-turner with plenty of excitement all through it. Child has not only made a detailed study of his character, but he has delved into the workings of the military and government. Yes, on occasion Reacher and Neagley sometimes seem to have superhuman powers, but the readers will willingly forgive those moments to cheer on the heroes of this story.

This new fast paced novel not only keeps you on your toes trying to figure out who wants to kill the Vice President-elect but also keeps you wondering why. Child gives us the answers to the questions as the book progresses. We start to understand how personal childhood experiences control our actions as adults.

In WITHOUT FAIL, Child has written a wonderfully thrilling story. I highly recommend this well written book.

I'm attracted to Lee Child's novels because of the hardboiled and self-contained nature of his hero, Jack Reacher. After almost two decades as a military cop in the U.S. Army, Jack now wanders the U.S. with only the clothes on his back - no car, no charge cards - and a penchant for crossing paths with assorted villains. Very soon, the reader begins to feel sorry for the Bad Guys.

Reacher is so unpolished that one sometimes wonders how he reached officer grade O-4 (Major), which would imply managing a wardrobe, knotting a tie, and displaying minimal social skills in the officers' mess and at the CO's annual Christmas party. It's not that Jack is a Neanderthal; he just doesn't care to run with the rest of the lemmings anymore.

In WITHOUT FAIL, M.E. Froelich, who heads the Secret Service protection detail for the newly elected Vice President, Brook Armstrong, hires Reacher to audit the security of the new Veep's protective screen. Froelich is also the ex-girlfriend of Jack's dead brother. After finding holes through which a potential assassin could drive a monster SUV, Reacher learns why the Service really wants his help. The VP is receiving credible death threats. And it may be an inside job.

I would've awarded WITHOUT FAIL at least one more star had it not been a Jack Reacher adventure. But it is, and here our prickly protagonist has to play well with others: Froelich, her boss Stuyvesant, FBI guy Bannon, and a colleague from Reacher's old Army days, ex-Sergeant Frances Neagley. Reacher's talent for punitive violence is severely curtailed compared to past episodes, revealing itself only at the very beginning and the very end. In between, Jack is reduced to being a consultant, even to the point of wearing a suit. Say it ain't so, Lee!

The most interesting character is Neagley, now employed by a civilian security firm. She's ostensibly more deadly at physical combat than Reacher himself, and he admits to being afraid of her skills. So, the reader waits, hoping she'll unleash some mayhem. In the meantime, we learn that Frances, while being a little in love with her old military boss, has a severe dislike of being touched due to some unspecified trauma in her past. Unfortunately, Neagley remains mostly a cipher, and the entertainment value of her character is left pretty much unexploited. Perhaps she'll appear in a future Reacher novel. Better still, the author should give her a series of her own.

I hope the next Reacher thriller is JACK IS BACK. With a vengeance.

While Frederick Forsyth's "The Day of the Jackal" is the classic assassination thriller, Lee Child hits another home run with "Without Fail", a page turner with all the technical accuracy of `Jackal" and the extra dose of adrenaline one would expect from Lee Child. Child's hulking loner Jack Reacher certainly has the mind of an assassin, and in "Without Fail", he is contracted by Secret Service agent M.E. Froelich to audit the security for the Vice President of the United States, the target of a threatened assassination. Froelich happens to be the former lover of Reacher's older brother, Joe, the former Treasury Department agent killed in action years before. What follows is an extremely credible portrayal of the US Secret Service and the challenges they face in protecting the holders of our highest public offices. As with all Child/Reacher novels, this one is well researched rich in detail. But just as the detail begins to hint at tedium, Child metes out another measure of plot twist, keeping the reader anxiously waiting for the next installment. Lee Child is a true student of pace, understanding the fine balance between plot development and action. Reacher's no-nonsense perspective on justice, crime and punishment is faithfully intact, but in "Without Fail", we meet Reacher's female equivalent, the formidable and lethal Frances Neagley, an ex-Army buddy of Reacher's. Like Child's hero, this is an austere, blunt, and powerful novel, ultimately predictable but never disappointing along the way. Entertainment in print simply does not get much better than this.

Without fail is the latest installment of the Jack Reacher series, and I can honestly tell you that Lee Child keeps on getting better and better.

An unusual proposal (how would you like to assasinate a Vice President?) leads to a page turning thriller with intelligent and sometimes unexpected twists and turns.

You don't need the background from previous novels (L. Child neatly sums everything up in few sentences), but I can only recommend that you read 'em all up.

More, please!

So far, author Child has yet to deliver anything less than a riveting book. Without Fail gives us Reacher in the ultimate urban setting: the heart of the Secret Service in DC. What would, in less capable hands, have been a deadly dull tale of a highly experienced outsider brought in to help the woman in charge of the detail protecting the vice president-elect is, in Child's hands, a fascinating study of how seemingly innocuous pieces of evidence lead from point to point until the reason behind the threats and assassination attempts is revealed.

Writing in the spare, tight prose that has become synonymous with Reacher's character--this man who owns almost nothing, lives anywhere, but is not emotionally unencumbered--the plot builds in pitch until it hits a crescendo, literally in the middle of nowhere. Reacher and his associate, Frances Neagley, (former military associate he has called upon for assistance on this job) work together like the proverbial well-oiled machine, and it is pure pleasure to witness how they think, how they deduce, how they calculate odds, risks, plans of action.

The author allows the behavior of the primary characters to reveal their inner lives, rather than wasting precious narrative time (and flow) on attempts to explain them from the outside-in. Final words, a half-written letter, the touch of one hand on another all have great import as a result.

This is a fine book. Most highly recommended.

I had been reading all of the Lee Child novels in order, but then I got one in the Jack Reacher series out of order at the library. Rather than wait for the other one to come in, I decided to plow on. This time it's Without Fail. Fortunately, there was no carry-on from the previous novel (that I haven't yet read), so I was able to fully enjoy another one by Child.

This time, Jack Reacher is drifting up the east coast helping a couple of jazz entertainers he's taken a liking to. While in New Jersey, he's tracked down by a member of the Secret Service designated to protect the Vice President-elect. She knew Jack's brother (*real* well), and thought that hiring Jack to do an assessment on their protective security would be a good idea. In less than a week, he proves he could have killed the VP-elect three times between him and a partner he brought in. Then he finds out the real reason behind the request. Someone's sending threatening letters to the politician, and they really don't know who it is nor do they have any decent leads. He's talked into staying on the case, and during the investigation it becomes personal. Which, of course, leads to the inevitable collision course between Jack and the "other parties"...

As with the rest of his books, I have a really hard time finding fault with anything. Without Fail is a fun read, and there's no clear-cut answers as to who is involved until you get towards the end. Jack's minimalist approach to life is still entertaining, and so far there is nothing to indicate that I want to slow down my pace of reading his novels. Another really good read, and I'm already looking forward to catching up with the missed novel when I get back from vacation.

When Lee Child wrote the KILLING FLOOR several years ago, I new that his first novel was so well written that it was going to be a difficult book to surpass. Though I continued to buy his novels in hardcover whenever they came out, I found myself more disappointed than amazed at their quality. ECHO BURNING won me back over and made me eager for the next one in the series. I'm extremely happy to say that Mr. Child's newest novel, WITHOUT FAIL, is the best in the "Jack Reacher" series. Not only did the author manage to grab my attention in the first chapter, he kept me anxiously reading during a day-and-a-half period of time while I was at the bus stop, during my breaks at work, and into the wee hours of the morning at home as sleep beckoned me. I finished the book with a big, silly grin on my face, saying a silent "thank you" to Mr. Child for writing such an excellent novel and for providing so much fun. WITHOUT FAIL brings Jack Reacher back as a private consultant to the United States Secret Service. A serious threat has been made against the newly elected Vice President, and the head of his protection detail, M.E. Froelich, believes that there's a possibility the threat is coming from inside the Service. She uses her previous relationship with Jack's late brother, Joe, as a lure to get our ex-military policeman to help her investigate the threat and hopefully to prevent the Vice President from being assassinated. Jack, knowing that two heads are better than one, calls in his own Army friend, Frances Neagley, to assist him in tracking down the potential killers and to watch his back. Together, they quickly begin to find flaws in the protection detail around the Vice President and realize that there's no way they can actually stop someone from killing the government official. Their only course of action is to anticipate the moves of the would-be assassins and to attack first. What Jack doesn't anticipate, however, is that he will fall in love with his dead brother's former girlfriend, which only adds to the problems he has to solve before the bodies start piling up. Though WITHOUT FAIL is low on action, the story line more than makes up for it with its multi-layers of suspense that keeps the reader speculating as to whether or not the threat to the Vice President is coming from within or outside of the Secret Service. We also learn more about Jack's brother, Joe, and their relationship with each other. Jack comes alive in ways that make him seem more human and gives us a greater understanding of why he's such a loner. With an inside look at how difficult it is for the Secret Service to protect a politician, WITHOUT FAIL delivers in every way, leading us to an ending that will satisfy even the harshest of critics. If you enjoyed the other "Jack Reacher" novels, then you're going to love the newest edition to the series.

Lee Child gets back on track with his hero, Jack Reacher.

After being disappointed in Running Blind and Echo Burning, I'd hoped that Child would return to the form of his first three Reacher novels, and he did!

Although it seems as though there are some readers that didn't appreciate the story, I found it to be exciting, fast-paced, and novel. Reacher is acting as a consultant to the Secret Service, drawn in by his dead brother's former paramour, M.E. Froelich.

There's good interaction and character development between Reacher & M.E., (not much in the way of other characters, though) and the plot builds to an exciting climax. I'm glad to see that Child has Reacher back "on the road".... and look forward to more in the series. Loved it!

Lee Child's latest novel, "Without Fail," is a top-notch action-adventure novel that will delight Lee Child's established fans and earn him some new ones. "Without Fail" features Jack Reacher, the formidable ex-military man who answers to no one but himself. Reacher can be deadly or compassionate and a more appealing mythic hero would be hard to find.

This time around, M. E. Froelich asks Jack to help her protect the Vice President elect of the United States, Brook Armstrong. Froelich is in charge of the Secret Service detail that is assigned to keep Armstrong safe as he travels around the country. Of late, Armstrong has received a series of threatening letters from an anonymous source. Froelich was in love with Jack's late brother, Joe Reacher, who died tragically in the line of duty, and she knows that Jack is a terrific investigator with a sharp mind and unerring instincts. Froelich wants to be certain that there are no gaps in the security that she is providing for Armstrong and she believes that Reacher is the man who can help her. He agrees and he brings on board a former military associate, a woman named Frances Neagley, who is now a security consultant in Chicago. Neagley is as well trained and as sharp as Jack himself, and she and Jack make a great team.

Reacher and Neagley put their heads together to answer some tough questions. Who is threatening Brook Armstrong and why? Does someone have a personal vendetta against the Vice President elect? Or is the perpetrator a disgruntled individual who has a grudge against the Secret Service or perhaps against Froelich herself? Reacher and Neagley call upon all of their considerable investigative resources as they consult with representatives of both the Secret Service and the FBI to track down the killer or killers before they carry out their threats. During the investigation, Froelich and Reacher find that they are attracted to one another. This adds another complication to an already tense situation.

Child's novel is fast-paced and entertaining. As always, his details about firearms and investigative procedure add authenticity and background color to the plot. The characters are all finely drawn, and Reacher has never been so commanding and astute as he is in "Without Fail." The denouement of the book is both surprising and unpredictable. In every way, "Without Fail" delivers the goods. It is an action-packed thriller that will have you turning pages quickly to see how the situation will play out. If you are not yet a fan of Jack Reacher and Lee Child, don?t be surprised if you soon join the ranks of those who are.