Echo Burning (Jack Reacher) | Lee Child

Echo Burning (Jack Reacher) | Lee Child | Echo Burning Review

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Echo Burning (Jack...

	Echo Burning (Jack Reacher) Lee Child Berkley Trade, 2005 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 101 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Thumbing across the west Texas desert, Jack Reacher has nowhere to go. Cruising the same stretch of blacktop is Carmen Greer. But the lift comes with a hitch. She's got a wild story to tell--about her husband, her family secrets, and a hometown that's pure Gothic.

Child at his best

This one starts slowly, leading up to a firecracker of an ending, typical of Lee Child novels. Jack Reacher, the ex army police officer turned freelance lawman who never hesitates to stick his nose into private business, takes his lively act to Texas, embroiling himself in what starts as a messy domestic dispute before turning far more ominous. The rugged former army cop comes to the aid of a damsil in distress, who picks him up on the side of the road one morning outside Lubbock, then asks him to kill her abusive husband. She is beautiful but is worried her husband is getting out of prison in a few days, and Carmen fears he will start beating her again. Reacher declines, but agrees to protect Carmen, hiring on as a cowhand at the couple's remote ranch in Echo County, Tex., far outside Pecos. Within hours of Sloop's return from prison, where he was serving time for tax evasion, violence strikes. But the victim isn't Carmen; it's Sloop. He's found shot dead, and Carmen is arrested. End of story? Hardly. Most wandering heroes would move on at this point, but not Reacher. He begins taking a hard look at both Carmen and Sloop's past, as well as local history. What he finds ugly secrets, human suffering, political evil is repulsive to a man who's been around as many blocks as Reacher. Child (Running Blind; Tripwire) has developed a fine franchise with Reacher, who comes from the Robin Hood mold, but has enough personal quirks and moments of unusual insight to separate him from the pack. Set in a literally and figuratively smoldering landscape, this is a clean, infectious story that taps deeply into two troubling human emotions the psychology of abuse and the desire for retribution.

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Echo Burning Review

Excellent fair. Reacher's skill and instincts are the highlight of this story. I love these action thriller type novels and the Reacher series always fills the bill. "Echo Burning" is one of the best thus far.

one of the best Reacher novels, intense climax

I have been reading all tof the Reacher books in order, and after the first 5 I still think the first one, Killing Floor, is still the best. This is the second best so far. The intensity builds slowly, and the one sequence towards the end where Reacher is stalking/being stalked in the woods at night during a thunder and lightening storm was unbelievably intense and pulse pounding!

The scorching Texas landscape lent the book a vivid sense of place and there was more of a mystery element than the last few books. Highly recommended!

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Weakest Reacher So Far

I'm willing to overlook quite a bit in a Jack Reacher novel, because the guy himself is so engaging and the plots are usually fairly intriguing, if verging on fantasy and with awfully black and white characters. But this one really went over the top with the stereotypes and implausibility. (And I'm not just talking about how many women find Reacher appealing even though he doesn't carry deoderant or even toothpaste to go with his folding toothbrush - never mind clean underwear!) That he gives Carmen even five minutes makes you think that the nail that pierced his forehead a couple of books back did worse damage to his brain than the doctor discovered.... The woman starts out as a stereotype of the "hot" Hispanic, but nothing rings true. She is supposedly college-educated, and with a wealthy, aristocratic background, someone who might have an ounce of self-possession, yet she falls back on tears, pleading and acting stupid and pathetic to lure him to helping her. Which he falls for - and normally Reacher is someone who treats men and women with equal respect/contempt, and ought to be immune to her manipulations. He says he's watched the same film noir that motivates her... but still acts like an idiot. Lets himself be driven a hundred miles from nowhere, in 110 degree heat (without even a bottle of water) by a woman whose response to a dozen sensible suggestions from him is just to whimper more.... According to her story, she doesn't want to be a fugitive, doesn't want to stay in Texas, but doesn't have a problem with trying to find a stranger to murder her husband! And we're supposed to want him to help her? I don't think so. Reacher is supposed to be better than this. He's smart enough to realize she hasn't been hit any time recently; but dumb enough (or the author is) to think that five years of daily or even weakly beatings could leave her still supple, graceful and physically flawless, without so much as a scar on her face (and with the nearest hospital hours away!). Anyway, I could hardly stand it. The best scene is Reacher learning to saddle and bridle a horse. I've done enough to know that here, at least, Child got the details right. I never thought I'd say it, because I discovered the series not that long ago and have been blazing through them much too fast ever since, but I'm almost glad I just have a few more to go, because I'm not sure I can stand beating my head against the wall much at Reacher's increasing lack of sense.... On the other hand, once the action really gets going, it's up to standard. But for heaven's sake, Reacher, buy a small toiletry kit, some fresh underwear and a backpack!

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