Echo Burning (Jack Reacher, No. 5) | Lee Child | The First Time is the Best Time

Echo Burning (Jack Reacher, No. 5) | Lee Child | The gentleman is a tramp

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Echo Burning (Jack...

	Echo Burning (Jack Reacher, No. 5) Lee Child Berkley Trade, 2005 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 103 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The First Time is the Best Time

I'm shocked to see the mediocre reviews of this Lee Child/Jack Reacher novel and fascinated to read the reading history of various reviewers. I want to comment on mine and other readers reactions to this series--and offer a theory--rather than really review the book. Often, perhaps, most of the time, the first book you read in a good to great series becomes the readers standard. Echoe Burning was this for me. My first by Child-- and out of nowhere never heard of the auther or character retrieved from a discard pile by accident--I began it and was enthralled, captivated, enthused. Now I've read many others, some almost as good the current but I recall it as brilliant and groundbreaking. Travis McGee meets Lucas Davenport with alot of coffee. Subsequent books in the series almost but don't really measure up. And KILLING FLOOR, my current read isn't on the same level at all. So these reviews are fascinating. Alot of fives. Many 1's and two's perhaps depending on where it has been read in the reader's sequence. Try this theory, for example, with Tom Robbins. I read Even Cowgirls Get the Blues first and consider it the standard and masterpiece. Those who started with Another Roadside Attraction seem to feel the same about that. Theory is fun but in sum, this was a great and worthwhile book.

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The gentleman is a tramp

Some reviews here were written by reviewers who did not read to the end and therefore misunderstood the story. I sympathize with that attitude. This is my third Reacher, and though I liked it better than the others, I still could not read through to the end. But at least I skimmed the final 50 pages and know what happened.
Child has a problem to keep the momentum, because his show downs are too long and elaborate. When most people have long figured out what will or might happen, he still needs to labour through longish action scenes, which are not his forte.
His forte is the setting up of unusual and mostly quite interesting calamities for JR. His quick action scenes are quite good, but his final show downs are for the poubelle. (Reacher's mother was French, so he will understand.)
What we have here is a variation on JLo's movie called Enough. One reviewer made comments on her (the JLo equivalent) which clearly indicate that he stopped reading before the end.
I would suggest to LC to drop the last 50 pages of all his novels. Always.
Re the story, I like it. I am also quite happy that JR finally outed himself as a closet Liberal. His views on applied law enforcement sometimes seem to point another direction.

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My Least Favorite Reacher

From reading the reviews, I see that there is major disagreement over this 5th entry in the Jack Reacher series. I'll cast my vote with the detractors. This is the first of the series where I thought "Huh?, what is he thinking?". Examples: Jack is surprised that he would be considered a suspect in a murder case where he clearly has involvement, and only isn't a suspect because of an iron-clad alibi. Jack thinks he can be a defense witness based on hearsay evidence from the accused.

I had to force myself to finish this one but it won't stop me from moving onto the next one.

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Ridiculous

All of the Reacher novels require you to suspend belief somewhat. But this one is simply absurd from beginning to end. Nothing that happens is even remotely foreseeable, the whole thing is disjointed, and when you find out "the truth" it is the mirror opposite of every clue that has been uncovered along the way. It reminded me of reading the original Sherlock Holmes books: while the reader is stuck snooping around with Watson who literally doesn't have a clue, Sherlock is off uncovering the true mystery, and at the end of the story, reveals all to Watson and the reader based on clues you never even saw.

Anyway .... I like Reacher, and I have enjoyed the series, but this one just seemed absurd.

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