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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not the hardest way, 28 July 2006
It is a testament to Lee Child's skill that despite this not being one of Reacher's best adventures, I still couldn't put the book down and finished it within 2 days.
The novel's opening gambit, a hook upon which the rest of the novel hangs is unfortunately quite flimsy. Not to give too much away, but in order to get the ball rolling Child has Reacher act in a way that will have regular readers scratching their heads; an action which is so out of character, the reader assumes it will be explained in some clever plot twist later on. But it isn't, and as such is an unusually weak opening.
Once over this little hiccup however, the novel trundles along nicely leading to a customarily understated finale. Other reviews have pointed to this being one of the more violent of Reacher's novels. I have to say I thought it was pretty tame compared to say, 'Persuader' or 'Without Fail', but no less powerful for that. Other reviews have also noted Child's now formulaic style as becoming stale. Again, I have to say this may have been true leading up to this novel, 'One Shot' for instance was disappointing in its format and predictable pace, but I found the Hard Way refreshingly different.
Indeed, Child shows a rare descriptive elegance, stepping outside his comfort zone of dusty rural Americana to deal with a shiny, frantic New York, satiric London and the comatose Norfolk countryside with consummate flair and no little amount of humour. Being a Brit who has mastered the American novel, it was a real pleasure to see him turn his eye to his native country, picking up subtle idiosyncrasies that are all the more amusing for knowing this is his real home-town.
Not his best, but still a great read from a very talented writer.
JD
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Always Good, yet Disappointing a little bit, 18 July 2006
I thought the previous novel, whilst having a somewhat incredulous premise of a sniper who deliberately missed bullseyes to mask his talent, was actually very good. And I do own the whole series, so this is a comparison with all the other books. And so far I like them so much I will continue to buy the next ones.
This book "The Hard Way" is still very good. But there are some rottenly cliched phrases - "Reacher striding alone in the shadows, armed and dangerous, and invincible" - spare me, please.
The books really are great. There is a lot of other rubbish on sale in airports. Much of it with raving reviews across the cover, from the Washington Post or New York Times.
Ok, so if you've bought a few Reacher books before, you know the deal. An ex-MP, he had to be better trained than the soldiers he policed. Makes for a great read. But in this novel he seems to be trained in hostage negotiation, he cows 6 ex-Special Forces soldiers sufficiently that they don't simultaneously jump him and beat him up, and he strides through the night invincible. I hope that "invincible" bit came from some idiot editor and not from Lee, because it stinks a bit.
To close, I think it's still a top book, and I was motivated enough to read it in a single go. But writing novels with the end view of them being screenplays has to be some kind of compromise. There is easily enough legs in this series to turn out another few novels that you read and want to press into the hands of other people. I thought this was filler, albeit quality filler.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I liked it, 1 Aug 2006
To be honest after reading some of the reviews here I was a bit wary of buying this in hardback. Fortunately I was pleasantly suprised. The last couple of Reacher's haven't exactly blown me away and I was quite unimpressed by "One Shot", but "The Hard Way" is a distinct improvement. The kidnap (or is it?) plot works well and kept me guessing to the end. Equally the body count is pretty low, but as Reacher has probably killed a couple of hundred people in his past adventures (about the same number as Britain lost in the Falklands war!) it adds a bit of realism to the book.
I have to agree with certain other reviewers that "the Hard way" lacks the sense of danger thats been so strong in the early books. The best by far was "Killing floor" especially the scene where 4 masked killers dressed entirely in white disposable jumpsuits hunted Reacher through the driving rain. A bit more of this in this book would have been very welcome.
All in all this latest installment in Reacher's adventures is well worth reading- hopefully Lee Child can bring back some of the excitement of his first books for his next Reacher!
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