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293 of 304 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
" Jacob Duncan said, 'Who the hell IS this guy?' ", September 30, 2010
This is a very enjoyable, vintage Reacher adventure. It starts well, slows a bit in the middle, but then picks up with a high body count towards the end. The plot is pleasingly complex and all the strands are sewn up neatly and logically by the end. It kicks off shortly after 61 Hours. Yes Reacher is alive, although you won't find out how he survived until about a third of the way through. This is a standalone story rather than a continuation of the plot in the previous book. Reacher is in rural Nebraska. He's on his way to Virginia and only intends to stop for a night, when he is drawn into what initially looks like a domestic dispute but ends up being something much bigger. The town is under the control of a very unpleasant family called the Duncans, who own a transportation company. The local farmers are dependent on the company and therefore live in fear of them. The Duncans have an important shipment coming in, which has been delayed. This is causing problems for their customer and for the customers of their customer. Consequently a food chain of increasingly nasty villains gets involved, with lots of double crossing and mind games going on. Tied into all this somehow is the mystery of a local girl who disappeared 25 years ago and whose body has never been found. The setting adds a lot to the tension. Reacher needs to hide in a flat and empty landscape where a man can be seen a mile away, with the locals unwilling to help a stranger. There is one section in the middle that reminded me of Nothing To Lose, with its endless trudging around small town Colorado in the dark, but this lull was temporary and the momentum picked up quickly again. I also liked the way that Lee Child incorporates Reacher's physical limitations. Reacher is no genius this time around: his deductions are logical and he misses a couple of pretty obvious tricks. All in all, it's another nail biting installment in a terrific series.
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120 of 133 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Definitely worth reading, but not quite worth dying for, October 4, 2010
I get the feeling like I'm the last person to know; I bought this book still thinking that it would be a shocking resolution to the cliff hanger ending of the previous 61 Hours. You see I was hooked into the possibilities: could Reacher actually be dead? OK I really doubted it but more likely - would everyone's favourite 00-bearman be crippled with burns? At any rate I thought the pundit prediction that his female counterpart running Reacher's old unit would play the major role of this novel was spot on. But no. Even just reading the blurb will tell you that Reacher is still functioning. I'm pretty sure Childs plays on our expectations, having Reacher described as "hurting" but at the end of the day he can still kick ass without flinching so one wonders why even bother trying to fool us into thinking Jack Reacher is mortal? Instead of playing the awesome sequel card, Childs just introduces us to another Jack Reacher adventure - this time versus the Duncans an evil family of hick/pervert/smugglers who control a local farming community with extreme violence and a gang of retired football players (most of whom are named Brett). If that isn't slapstick enough for you, the Duncans answer to a the Italians, who answer to some other bad guys, who answer to some Iranians, who answer to the Saudis - all of whom send a couple of guys to keep an eye on the others, resulting in a small town full of organized criminals who comically murder each other (or get their hearts punched out by Reacher) While the story is fairly run-of-the-mill for Childs, the prose is solid, and the action is well planned. The drama is somewhat limp as the main characters are nowhere near as memorable as in 61 hours and other Reacher novels, and without attachments the story merely becomes a blow by blow account of Reacher pounding on the baddies, and dressing down the cowering townsfolk. Still, Child leads the field in thriller writing, and Worth Dying For is a prime example of his brillance, I think as an author not living up to your own works is forgivable when all your works are leagues ahead of everything else in the genre.
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66 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jack's back, October 7, 2010
Who'd have thought it? Jack Reacher survived an explosion that can be seen from space. Read this in a few hours. Usual Reacher, breaks bones with scientific accuracy and speed. Utterly ruthless and barely a suggestion of sarcasm. Can't help thinking that if I was that good, I'd be sarcastic as hell. The Vegas villains seemed to be portrayed as if they were in a Cohen Brothers film. Stylish but stupid and incompetent. It made their outcomes fairly assured from the moment they were introduced. The ending tells us that the East Coast may be an eventful journey and personally I want to be on board. Jack Reacher is a character for our times. I've passed some time trying to work out who would play him on the big screen and the problem is there really isn't anyone who comes close. Russell Crowe? Too short and getting too old for the series (of films), but has the look. Making of the film would be fairly inexpensive as the action is real world, well, real Reacher world. Keep em' coming
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