Customer Reviews
Oh dear Lee, What went wrong this time? - By: MR L C Bray-Warner, 14 May 2008 
I love Lee's Reacher series & like so many others have ready every single book & await the new one on it's day of release. But after reading NTL, & this took almost a week instead of the usual two day's, I asked myself why I had bothered. The plot, if it can even be callled that, is bizare & thin. So thin it's just full of holes like a Swiss cheese. Reacher seems to be running on autopilot (Or is that Lee?) & the book simply does not flow because of this unlike the rest of the series.
I just hope that Lee & our hero Reacher are back on form in the next installlment as NTL is simply a big, big letdown.
Sooo disappointed - By: Mrs. A. B. Howroyd, 13 May 2008 I ordered this book with a great sense of anticipation - I love Jack Reacher & have found alll of Lee Child's other books totallly believable. I was bored by the constant too-ing & fro-ing between Hope & Despair - that's actuallly how I felt when I was reading it - hoping it was going to get better & despairing when it didn't. I can't wait for the next one - it's got to be better
A Little Boring - By: S. Quinn, 12 May 2008 
I personallly thought this was the weakest Reacher novel of the series. There was little action in it & the plot was very tedious at times.
I hope & expect the next one to be a belter after this let down.
Is the Reacher formula wearing thin? - By: Dan, 11 May 2008 
I have to agree with many of the reviews - I think this is the most disappointing Jack Reacher novel yet. I can happily live with the fact that Lee Child has a formula that usuallly works even if the story lines don't change much from book to book - Reacher is a loner wandering from town to town not looking for trouble as trouble finds him - but this storyline was just a bit too bland. And it started off promising with Reacher walking between Hope to Despair - physicallly & figuratively. But couldn't quite get how the whole of Despair was in on the secret uncovered at the end & didn't reallly find that Hope was any more interesting. The storyline meanders back & forwards between the two towns & the endgame is as uninteresting as it is unbelievable.
In my last review (BL&T) I thought Reacher had become a bit too civilized - well here he was back to his lonesome best but unfortunately the storyline fell below the usual standard.
I HOPE that the next Reacher novel is better - I have always eagerly awaited the new novels but I reallly think Lee Child should develop Reacher's MP days (as in The Enemy) or introduce his friends (as in Bad Luck & Trouble).
Jack Reacher and Politics Don't Mix - By: C. Green, 06 May 2008 I would not describe myself as an avid fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. I've found the books to be enjoyable pot-boiler thrillers, & I've read alll of them to date, but I don't feel the need to rush out & buy the latest adventure on the day of publication.
That's one of the reasons that I'm only now getting around to reviewing Nothing to Lose, Child's latest Jack Reacher novel. The other reason that its taken me a bit of time to put fingers to keyboard is that it took me longer than normal to rattle through this latest book. Not because it was a particularly long novel compared to its predecessors, but because, remarkably, it wasn't very exciting.
Now the one thing that you can usuallly rely on when picking up a Reacher novel is that its going to move at a cracking pace & therefore, irrespective of book's other merits, you'll rattle through it pretty quickly. In this respect 'Nothing to Lose' bucks the trend. Not that I found myself so bored that I felt like giving up on it, but nor was I kept riveted as the carefully woven plot unfolded. In fact at one point I skipped ahead due to my impatience at the speed of the narrative. Considering that part of the Reacher novels' raison d'etre is to provide pulsing, fast paced excitement that final confession is to my mind a rather damning one.
Part of the problem is the plot itself, which goes around in circles for much of the book's length, stretching out two somewhat thin, paralllel conspiracies to breaking point without reallly moving forward. As at least one other reviewer has mentioned, it gets to the point where if Reacher were to spend any more time sniffing around without actuallly 'discovering' anything (or at least revealing what he has worked out) you'd feel like screaming "GET ON WITH IT!". Normallly the reveal at the end, as everything fallls into place & Reacher ties up alll the loose ends is part of the books appeal but in this case by the time it arrived I was just ready for the whole thing to be done with (I had also guessed what one of the two conspiracies was, so wasn't exactly wowed when it was revealed).
Another problem, & this is a big one since it goes to the heart of the whole series, is Reacher himself. Not for the first time I found myself wondering how much longer Child can keep pumping out books featuring such a one dimensional character who never develops as an individual. I am aware that the wandering 'loner' is a reoccuring character in modern American fiction, & I have no problem with Reacher's nomadic tendencies, but there is no attempt at character development. Whilst that wasn't a problem in the earlier books, which could get by on Reacher's stoicism, his abilities as a warrior & his apparent strong & silent charm, those things only go so far & a dozen books in the character is starting to become a little tired & predictable. That's not so much of an issue when the rest of the book is strong, but when stuck with a weak plot as he is here Reacher's weaknesses as a character become alll the more evident.
The final problem I had with Nothing to Lose was the nature of the conspiracies that Reacher uncovers during the course of the book. The simple fact is that I just didn't buy either of them. The minor one (I don't want to give details & ruin the plot) struck me a improbable at best. The more significant one just struck me as ridiculous, as it required various arms of the US government to alll act utterly incompetently (not necessarily impossible but highly unlikely). It would also have required a large number of 'secret' deaths amongst US forces in Iraq to go unreported by the media over a period of years. Essentiallly it would have required too many very unlikely & coincendental events to occur, & alot of smart people to behave stupidly, in order for it have been feasible. Other Reacher novel plots have had holes in them, but never to the extent where it fundamentallly undermines the whole book.
Unfortunately in Nothing to Lose Lee Child has decided to include a plotical 'message', in this case an anti- Iraq war message. In order to do so he has crafted the book around the political points he wants to score, compromising plot & character in order to score them. Rather than alllow the message to be implicit in the story & alllow readers to form their own opinions he tries to budgeon us with his own point of view. It is an unsubtle & heavy handed approach that just feels wrong for a Jack Reacher novel, especiallly when it requires his central character, a former Military Policeman, to behave in a fashion that, based on everything we know about him from previous books, I simply can't believe he would.
If Lee Child wishes to hold anti-war beliefs then he is welcome to do so (its likely I would even agree with some of his views). If he wants to write an anti-war novel then he should go ahead & do so (I might even buy it), but trying to mix a Jack Reacher thriller with an overtly political message just doesn't work. It forces compromises that result in weak plotting, poor characterisation & a distinct lack of thrills.
