JOE DILLARD IS A JACK REACHER WANNABE, PLEASE RETURN TO THE COURTROOM
342107
Reasonable Fear (Joe Dillard Series Book 4)
MY REVIEW ** TWO STARS

I became an enthusiastic fan of Scott Pratt after reading his runaway hit debut novel AN INNOCENT CLIENT. I purchased additional installments in the Joe Dillard Series and "read to regret" these impetuous purchases.

This is a brief review of REASONABLE FEAR, the 4th novel down the road following Pratt's successful first book. In the spirit of full disclosure, I was still perturbed with the author after reading his prior adventures of Joe Dillard (Injustice For All Book 3).

REASONABLE FEAR was at its very core a "David vs. Goliath" tale. An author can pull an unlikely hero "out of the hat" (like a magician does with a rabbit) and take the reader on a satisfying journey that culminates in both an enjoyable read and a successful book. One doesn't have to look any farther than Greg Iles and his protagonist Penn Cage [ironically a former District Attorney turned Best-Selling Writer]. The simple fact is that the author of REASONABLE FEAR is not able to replicate that same successful formula and achieve the same credible storyline. The fictional character of Joe Dillard, Attorney At Law, ex-Army Ranger, is unable to dart into the proverbial phone booth and emerge as SUPERMAN.  That narrative "just don't fly"---and Pratt is no Greg Iles.

It would appear that I am an outlier here, and I'll accept that designation like a good sport.
461388
I wanted to like this book. It sounded like my type of action series. Unfortunately, there are too many problems for me to enjoy it. In his attempt to sound more American, Child writes in very short sentences, often using two or three words. A few pages of this technique gets old fast, especially when he describes a series of mundane actions in choppy little sentences. I liked the ex-MP, lone wolf angle, but I think it gets overplayed without a compelling backstory. In the fist book of the series, Killing Floor, Reacher goes to great lengths to never leave a paper trail, and then explains it away as "a bit of fun." Besides the obviously British phrasing, it reveals that Reacher lives like a bum simply because it amuses him to hide from a system that isn't looking for him. The Hard Way was my second, and probably final, attempt to get into this series. In both books, Reacher, the supposedly very good detective, will see a very small part of the puzzle and instantly jump to conclusions that are patently wrong. Worse, he holds onto these wrong conclusions throughout much of the novel. I've been around real MPs. They are completely detail oriented. They will write a three page report describing a jay walker...and they will never assume somebody is dead until they see a body. But Reacher assumes most people he hasn't seen are dead, and he is unwavering on the matter...mainly because the author wants the reader to think so too, so they'll be duly surprised when they pop up near the end.  Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious to the reader what's going on, and wading through 200 pages before Reacher catches up is frustrating. The detective needs to be at least as smart as the reader.  Also in both books, the villains die too quickly for my taste. These guys are really evil, doing terrible things to other people...I want them to know when they've lost. It doesn't have to be some big Hollywood cliche, like dangling from a cliff over a lava flow...but a little something that shows they know they're on their way to super-villain hell. Child makes getting killed in a gun battle oddly anti-climatic. Bottom line: Reacher tries too hard to be the Lone Wolf tough guy, routinely operates on pure speculation unlike any real cop, and ends the whole tiring episode with a bullet to someone's head before drifting off to do it all over again.
3515302
In speaking about the Reacher books, Stephen King, who knows something about writing, calls Personal "the best one yet."  King evidently hasn't read the far better The Enemy and The Hard Way.  Even if we were to exclude those two earlier Reacher books from King's assessment, calling any of author Lee Child's formulaic vigilante justice fantasies "best" is pretty faint praise.

In Personal, number 19 in the series, Jack Reacher finds himself in Paris and London as both the hunter and the hunted as he races to catch a sniper on the loose.  I use the word "races" advisedly.  The plodding narrative doesn't pick up steam until around the book's half-way mark.  It doesn't help that Lee Child is his usual way too descriptive.  Which makes his books way too long.  Which he thinks justifies charging his readers way too much.  Which is why I borrow them for free from the library instead of buying them.

It struck me reading Personal that Lee Child is the only one on the planet who has not seen the classic scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones confronts a guy spoiling for a fight, the guy tries to intimidate and bait Indy into the fight by twirling his swords in a menacing manner, at which point Indy simply pulls out his pistol and shoots him.

In this book Reacher, armed with no less than two powerful pistols, insists on risking serious harm to himself by fighting one incredibly large and dangerous guy hand-to-hand.  And then at the end of the fight, while Reacher has the guy on the ground, he winds up shooting him anyway.  Why bother fighting him instead of just shooting him in the first place like Indiana Jones?  Presumably so that Mr. Child could tediously fill an entire chapter with a blow-by-blow description to create excitement sorely lacking elsewhere in his book.  And to create a longer book to overcharge his readers.

My only recommendation about Personal is to find a copy at your local library.  That way, at least all you will have wasted is your time.
3687032
This is a very dark Jack Reacher novel. As is the ritual, there is an ambiguous scene in the opening chapter that sets the story in motion.  Le Child, almost like a good musician who knows how to write a memorable opening riff that keeps the listener wanting to hear more, Lee knows how to create the opening sentence that makes you read the 2nd sentence. Then the first paragraph. You have to finish the first page. Before you know it, you're through the opening chapter and you have to keep going.  It always works. And still does.

I gave this novel two stars, and titled it This is a very dark Jack Reacher novel. I don't give Make Me 2 stars because it is so dark, (as others have done) instead, I give it only 2 stars because the writing is too padded paragraphs and sentences and words that really move the story along. Instead, paragraphs and words and phrases and sentences and thoughts and reflections are used only to make the work longer.  I think, having read 10 - 15 of the Reacher novels, that the characters in this book are the least believable characters Lee has ever created. They aren't so much characters as they are ideas of characters. The bad guys aren't bad guys. They are the idea of bad guys. There was nothing to hang on to, nothing to believe, nothing believable. Sub and supporting characters were treated the same way. They weren't drawn in ink, they were sketched, lightly, with pencil. easily erased and easily forgotten. Some not even necessary to move the story forward, and some that weren't even a good use as a McGuffin.  The plot point of the "dark web", as explained by a pointless characrer with the personality of Bugs Bunny, was a good plot point, and the slow dawning realization of what the EVIL characters, drawn only in crayon, were up to was shocking to be sure. It went to a dark place. And that's fine. But really Lee? 20 novels in and you're padding the pages to reach the contractually obligated length of the novel? Better luck on the next one.
4886341
A big step down for McBride in this outing. I am going to confess- I got bored reading this book. The plot was fairly compelling, an old student -Raven, of Nate and Harv's has gone over to the darkside and is using his sniper powers for evil. The dynamic duo's boss at CIA calls them in and tells them to fix it. So we have a covert insertion into a banana republic, a meet-up with the other former student who dropped the dime on Raven to begin with, and then....t...h...e......a...c..t..i...o...n....s.l..o..w..s......t..o.....a...c..r..a..w......l.

Peterson has begun writing for shooting junkies as he is one himself. We get page, after page, after page of sniper geek. Sometimes entire chapters are devoted to the minutia of setting up a shot. And then it misses. Geez o man!!!

Way too much geeky narrative ruins what should have been a pretty decent story. Peterson might want to go back and re-read some of the early Reacher books. Child's crisp writing style is what keeps this character fresh. Since Reacher is certainly the archetype for Nate, it might also make sense to copy Child's writing style a little closer.

Bottom-line this one is a big disappointment to me. Can't recommend it even to McBride junkies.
2837255
I've read all the Jack Reacher stories and was looking forward to reading this one.  I bought it and read it and should have waited for my library to get it.  As one of the previous reviewers mentioned, some readers might be annoyed at Lee Child's politics  revealing itself in Jack Reacher.  That did annoy me.  The different plots seamed to be reaching a bit (sorry).  I was ready the throw the book down when  it referred to an Army Lt. as a "one-striper."  Let's hope, but not despair,(that was fun) Lee Child will bring his magic back with his next  book.
3008339
Having ridden the "Jack Reacher" express since he was introduced by Lee Child in the "Killing Floor", I found this effort very difficult to review.  Child made some clever changes in the storyline but also stumbled at times as he tried to keep the bar so high for Reacher's fans.  Child has clearly begun to struggle keeping Reacher's stories fresh and vital while avoiding the pitfalls of repeating plots and rehashing storylines--something not easy after 17 books that have created a gigantic following. The set up in "Wanted Man" is different and new for Reacher, but the whole conceit ultimately takes a toll on the reader's patience, interest level, and acceptability.

Reacher is hitchhiking to Virginia when he is picked up by two men and a woman and the story unfolds as Reacher's keen insight and investigative experience begin to reveal that things are amiss and everyone is not who they seem to be.  It is an interesting concept to allow Reacher to use his akills and intuition to discover underlying plot threads in "real time" as he dissects the words and actions of his car mates. But this is at a cost as the reader becomes distracted by the sheer verbiage in descriptions of the passing landscape and mind games inside the car.  The whole car sequence, while vital to the plot was overly long and easily could have been truncated by several chapters.

Reacher is ultimately abandoned in the boonies whereupon he conveniently joins forces with an FBI agent willing to ignore her protocols and bosses and joins Reacher on a fanciful flight after the fleeing men who we discover had left a dead man behind before car-jacking the female passenger's car.  There are reappearing characters representing the FBI, the State Department, and the CIA as well as local law enforcement who all seem bent on either solving the crime or making it disappear.

Reacher's cerebral skills are more in evidence in this effort than his oft employed physical skills.  He intuits lies, motivations, and purpose from the conversations and actions of his ride sharers.  Child builds a palpably dangerous sense of menace within the automobile as the traveling companions lie, feint, and misdirect allowing the reader to wonder when the explosion of violence will occur.  The conflicting law enforcement agencies and references to the Homeland Security Act helps confuse readers as one group works to solve a crime that their superiors claim never happened.  For this reviewer, the ending was somewhat abupt and anticlimatic with some strange decisions about who should live and who should die.  The last glimpse of Reacher resuming his hichhiking on the interstate after all he has just been through seemed both convenient and unlikely.

Is this the worst Jack Reacher novel as so many others are saying?  Not in my opinion because there are intriguing elements, interesting characters, some menacing suspense, and a mystery not solved until the conclusion (along with one unresolved thread).  So let's just say it was somewhere between his best and his worst.  But trying to create a novel where the story unfolds in real time as Reacher interacts in a confined auto with a sense of menace building ultimately results in a claustrophobic and overly drawn out sequence.  Also, strangely enough, several characters die in "A Wanted Man" that totally surprises the reader, especially the manner of their deaths considering their contribution early in the plotline.  The Jack Reacher novels are still great reading (some more than others) but visualizing Tom Cruise as a 6'5" 250 lb. mass of menace is something even my suspension of disbelief cannot handle.
4806158
The main character, Jack Reacher, is a smart Special Forces type guy, with all kinds of military training and experience and a small ego. (The small ego is really refreshing in a hero. I liked that he didn't come across as a know-it-all.) Through a misfortune he finds himself stuck in a small South Dakota town at the beginning of a blizzard...and that town is about to have a big problem.
Jack senses the problem and helps the Sheriff solve the crisis.

Pros:
- The author is a good writer...he made the characters believable and interesting.
- The main character was very interesting. This guy could definitely have a whole series of adventures that would be great to read about.
- You get a vivid idea of what cold weather is really like. The story takes place in wintertime South Dakota, and the author makes you feel the cold. Excellent writing. (I grew up in Minnesota and now live in California and it brought me back to bad memories of the bitter, icy cold of upper midwestern winters.)

Cons:
- No suspense. I prefer action stories, where I can hardly wait to turn the page. I thought that is what I was getting in 61 hours, but there was absolutely no suspense (he tried to inject it by 'counting down' from 61 hours as the story progressed, but you were never given any information about what you were counting down to, and that made the title seem gimmicky) and virtually no action.
- The pace of the book was somewhat slow. I kept checking to see how many pages were left. The main character had so much potential that I felt something interesting would happen at any minute, but halfway through the book I realized that nothing special was going to occur until the end, and I was afraid even the ending would be a dud.
- I don't mind suspending my belief system in fictional stories, for the sake of the plot. But, there were a couple of events that made you say, "There is no way this guy could ever come to that conclusion." An example of this is when the hero of the book (Reacher) surmised that a guy he had never heard of was going to fly into this little town in South Dakota, in the middle of the night, on his own large jet and cause some big-time mischief. What? Where did that come from? Most of his deductions were really good, but the ones that were central to the theme of the story were a little on the thin side. Accurate, but thin.

Buy this book if you like a well written story about people in a small town. Don't buy it if you want a 'page turner.'
1523466
I'm sorry that I find myself in the position of posting a one star review for this book. I do so as a loyal fan of the Reacher series, having read every one. Some of them stand out as particularly outstanding. All before now has made for enjoyable and satisfying reading. This one, which I did dutifully finish, was, for me, a dismal failure and a true low point in the series.

The pace was painfully slow and plodding.
The action typical of most of the Reacher novels was a not a feature until 52% of the text was under my belt.
The story line was uninspired and felt like the author, frankly, was tired in his task.
The major plot of the book was grotesque and disgusting to a degree never before seen in a Reacher novel.

All in all, a horrible disappointment.

I trust the next one will be better. If it means taking a couple years off to do better, so be it. Don't let the publisher force you into producing a book that is not up to the standards set in Vols. 1-19.
2868777
I think the author is running out of ideas.  If this is the best he can do with this character at this point of time, it is time to quit.  The last several Reacher stories have been weak with this the weakest.  This is too bad because some of his previous books have been great.  Do yourself a favor and skip this one.
3598364
This is my least favorite by far of all the Jack Reacher novels.  So why did I give it five stars?  There are two reasons: 1. Lee Child is so good that his worst is better than most other author's best.  2. The book works in spite of the 'count-down' gimmick.

We have sixty-one hours from the start of the book until something horrific is going to happen.  Every so often we're told how much longer till that event arrives.  It's a silly gimmick:  There's plenty of suspense without this constant and unnecessary attempt to ratchet up the tension.  I think the author must have been feeling a bit weak when he wrote this one, without need: he's never weak.

Neither is Jack Reacher, the protagonist.  Please don't judge him by the recent movie starring Tom Cruise.  A case of mis-casting.  It should have been Liam Neeson, except for the fact he's tied up in the somewhat similar Taken series.  But these books don't need to be made into movies.  They're visual enough by themselves.
3438955
Cruise comes up short

Having read all of the Reacher novels I eagerly awaited the viewing of the first movie.  While I enjoy watching Tom Cruise perform he is no Jack Reacher.  As much as they tried to make him appear tough and gritty he could not pull it off.  Jack Reacher of the novel was a giant of a man-------Cruise just cannot reach that height.
462450
While the heated criminal court room drama continues in this latest Joe Dillard Series it takes on what I feel to be a newer fresher approach to the story telling. Joe Dillard kinda takes a back seat in this one while the new generation of defense attorneys take front and center in the "mystery" . As the story unravels I feel the ending was quite predictable and a bit less exciting and action packed as the previous books by this new and promising author. However I still look forward to his next adventure in this series.
1330686
Being a fan of Lee Child and his character, Jack Reacher, Cruise was hard to take.  Anyone familiar with the character in the book knows that a lot about Reacher is his size and the pint sized Cruise just doesn't work at all.  Maybe Jim Caviesal might fill the bill, but Cruise has to go.
1273913
not his best....courtroom narrative was uneventful
1113896
Worst lead casting in the history of motion pictures. Cruise does his best but he simply is NOT Jack Reacher. It would be like filming Conan the Barbarian starring Charles Nelson Reilly.
746385
Lee Child is a good read. But Tom Cruz is a poor substitute for Reacher. He maybe comes to Reacher's waist? That's a movie I'll never see.