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Amazon.co.uk Review
The ‘surprise’ factor when reading the thrillers of Lee Child has, it must be admitted, vanished. Most readers who pick up the new book, The Hard Way, will be well aware that this extremely American narrative is, in fact, written by an Englishman. The days when early readers of Child (notably his American fans) would exclaim how amazing it was that Child got all the cultural reference points correct are long gone. And, in a way, that's not a bad thing--now we can judge the novels purely on their own terms. And if The Hard Way doesn't initially appear to be quite as impressive as its predecessors, that's not to say that it isn't a supremely assured piece of work.
The ‘surprise’ factor when reading the thrillers of Lee Child has, it must be admitted, vanished. Most readers who pick up the new book, The Hard Way, will be well aware that this extremely American narrative is, in fact, written by an Englishman. The days when early readers of Child (notably his American fans) would exclaim how amazing it was that Child got all the cultural reference points correct are long gone. And, in a way, that's not a bad thing--now we can judge the novels purely on their own terms. And if The Hard Way doesn't initially appear to be quite as impressive as its predecessors, that's not to say that it isn't a supremely assured piece of work.
Child's durable hero is, of course, ex-soldier Jack Reacher. Child's publishers claim 'men want to be him--women want to have him', and there's no denying that’s a considerable part of Reacher’s appeal. His footloose lifestyle and handy way with the trouble that he’s always encountering are handled by Child with great panache. In some ways, Reacher is the perfect existential hero: he owns nothing or no-one, and he is, in his turn, owned by nothing or no one. He is defined by the actions he undertakes--and that definition only lasts as long as the problem he is involved with. This one has an even wider range than usual, starting on a busy New York thoroughfare and moving to a violent finale across the Atlantic in the sylvan depths of the English countryside, with Jack up against some very dangerous opponents. Interestingly, Child’s publishers describe Jack Reacher in this novel as ‘invincible’, and (ironically) they put their finger on an interesting point in this latest entry. While Jack has always been supremely capable, earlier books have always had a genuine sense of danger--how the hell would Jack get himself out of the latest lethal situation? Here, the outcome seems less in doubt. But this is a minor quibble--Child could not write a bad book if he tried, and all the narrative momentum that propelled the earlier Reacher adventures is satisfyingly in evidence in his latest outing.
--Barry Forshaw
Product Description
Late at night in a New York cafe, army-cop-turned-drifter Jack Reacher orders coffee in a cup made of foam, not china, so that he can move on at a moment's notice. He owns nothing, carries less, has never encountered a female colleague he can't bed, or a case he can't solve. But now, Reacher is confronted by a situation so disturbing and deceptive that the truth eludes him. Has he painted targets on the good guys' backs? So Reacher starts over at square one. He sweats the details and works the clues. As they used to say back in the service, he's doing it the hard way. Until, what started on a busy New York street explodes three thousand miles away in the sleepy English countryside with Reacher striding alone in the shadows, armed and dangerous, and invincible.
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