Read: "Die Trying" by Lee Child

Read: Die Trying by Lee Child, 1998, 0515125024 pbk.

Pretty decent. I have been dragging on finishing a couple nonfiction books so I figured I would take a novel home. This is a good thriller but I ended up remembering another novel, maybe by Stuart Woods, that had the same setting of secessionist militia dudes in the forest.

Jack Reacher is walking down a Chicago sidewalk when someone drops a crutch trying to get through a dry cleaners doorway. Reacher helps the lady by picking up her 20 or so bags of cleaning and turns to find two armed men facing him. The two men kidnap Reacher and the gal and stick them in the back of a panel truck.

Reacher and the gal are taken to an abandoned town in Montana which has been taken over by a militia organization led by a fat, crazy dude. The gal is an FBI agent, the daughter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and goddaughter to the President. The gal was the kidnappers' goal but the idiotic team leader took Reacher along rather than kill him.

This is the second Reacher novel by Child but the third one I have read. The other two were quite a bit better with more believable story lines and better plotting (the plotting for The Hard Way was fantastic). Maybe it took some practice for Child to get as sharp as he was for Die Trying, that book really impressed me.

Once again Reacher is wandering the country with no possessions, no home, no method of financial support. But, call him Mr. Irresistible because he bones the FBI gal and impresses the fat, crazy guy enough to delay execution. He's also Mr. Skill since his knowledge and abilities are endless and don't deteriorate, even years after last practice.