Thursday, September 3, 2009

Finished: "Running Blind" by Lee Child

Finished: Running Blind by Lee Child, 2000, 0399146237.

I'm still working my way through the Reacher series. It's funny how a lot of books can be easily identified as pre-9/11 or post-9/11.

Reacher is eating at his favorite Manhattan restaurant when a couple thugs come in to extort the owner. Reacher intervenes and sends both to the hospital. Reacher gets back to his house north of NYC and is instantly surrounded by lots of FBI and cops. Reacher gets taken back to Manhattan, stuck in a holding cell, interrogated under suspicion of being a serial murder of former Army women whose sexual harassment cases he investigated. Reacher is threatened over the restaurant thugs incident. Reacher is called a murder suspect. Reacher gets sprung.

The life of Reacher's girlfriend is threatened by the FB-fucking-I. Bad idea. Reacher agrees to be a consultant and liaison with Army for the feebs. Reacher expresses contempt for FBI theories and "profiling". Reacher uses Army contacts. Reach hates some of the agents. Reacher investigates. Reacher cracks the case. Reacher breaks neck of the FBI agent who was real killer. Reacher threatened with murder charges by humiliated FBI. Reacher and FBI reach a truce.

Another solid job by Child. The man does great work. Reacher is still big, still vicious, still brilliant, and still scoring with the ladies. Child's red herring was lousy. I was able to figure out the culprit somewhat early because the suspect pool was limited.

Like I needed other reasons (fictional or not) to mistrust the government and the FBI.

2 comments:

Todd Mason said...

Huh. I have yet to try Child...I hadn't realized that his Reacher series was so much in the Worldwide Library or perhaps Andrew Vachss school.

Yvette said...

I've read all of Lee's books and this one, I admit, was not a favorite. But even lackluster Reacher is worth reading. Lee Child rarely disappoints.

My favorites so far in the books:

WITHOUT FAIL
PERSUADER
61 HOURS
WORTH DYING FOR

I am horrified to think that Tom Cruise may actually think himself qualified to play Reacher.