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Running Blind

Running Blind

List Price: $32.95
Your Price: $21.75
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 .. 8 >>

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: BORING!!
Review: Ive read Killing Floor, & Echo Burning and thought they were good.This book is BORING ! The reviewers here that give this more than1/2 a star must be related to or friends of Lee.
Save your money or i agree with another reviewer here go read anything by Stepen Hunter.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Reacher Hunts A Serial Killer
Review: Jack Reacher is enlisted by the FBI, most definitely against his will, to act as a consultant on a serial killer case. The case is baffling to say the least. So far, 3 women have been found dead in their bathtubs and the killer has left absolutely no clues behind, including how the women were murdered.

This is a tense battle of wills between Reacher and the FBI agents, with continual antagonism between them setting the boundaries. This turns to frustration as Reacher comes up with theories that he presents to the FBI, only to have them repeatedly rejected. It turns into a battle on two fronts as Reacher is up against a killer who is sure to kill again and the FBI who seem incapable of accepting his ideas.

The Jack Reacher books are frantic action thrillers starring a protagonist who is ultra-capable and prepared to push boundaries, whether it's legal or moral. This particular book is no exception, although the pace does tend to get hampered by the unwelcome intervention of the FBI.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another Winner
Review: Mr. Lee Child has written another winner with his "Running Blind." Jack Reacher once again gets involved in solving a horrendous series of murders. There are lots of twists and turns with an almost complete surprise ending. I will admit I was starting to suspect the true villin about 1/2 to 3/4 through, but it didn't detract from my reading enjoyment. Let me warn you though, this is a one sitter -- you will not be able to put it down. Mr. Child: keep up the good work.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I love Jack Reacher
Review: I could not put this down. I suspected who the real killer was fairly early on in the book, but loved seeing all the pieces put together. Plus, I just love Jack Reacher. All these people complaining about innaccuracy and how unrealistic this is, here's the deal: it's called "willing suspension of disbelief" and is critical to any story that is not about our own tedious and boring lives. I do not care if Ft. Dix is a navy base (even though my dad and father in law were stationed there while in the Army, I was so into the story I never noticed that)or if it is even in New Jersey (yes, I know it is). No, normal people do not live in the same clothes day in and day out. No, normal people do not outsmart the FBI and hop from bed to bed. If you want to read about normal people I will be happy to send you pages from my journal about potty training, homework, laundry, etc. I read for a brief escape into a completely different life, for the mental challenge of figuring out "whodunnit," and for the pure joy of a good thriller. If that's what you're looking for, buy this book. If you want an accurate accounting of military policies, I'm sure they have a fascinating manual you can pick up at your local Army surplus store.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Jack Reacher, great but inconsistent and frustrating hero
Review: This is my third of the Jack Reacher series, after Die Trying and Tripwire (have not read Killing Floor). Reacher is an interesting and likeable but highly flawed and frustrating character. Flawed not in the sense of human flaws, which always makes characters richer, but because the author--Lee Childs--has handicapped his own creation. We are told that Reacher, a former Army MP, is highly intelligent, magnificently large, strong and intimidating, a crack shot, an experienced and skillful investigator, and a creative, intuitive thinker; he is also an Army major who has mustered out and -- no other word for it --deteriorated into a bum. In Die Trying, Reacher explains that he lived his whole life on foreign bases and is traveling around the U.S. getting to know his own country; by Running Blind, he has no such excuse; he has simply become Willie Nelson--on the road again. No rhyme or reason for his restlessness and certainly no excuse for his reluctance to own anything, even an ID card or a comb. Any rational, intelligent, sensible man, no matter how relucant to be "anchored," should be willing to carry something besides a clip-on toothbrush--a small bag containing clean underwear, an extra pair of jeans and a shirt or two is not a major hindrance to traveling light. And not carrying ID is just plain idiotic. Childs, in order to make his character iconoclastic and therefore more intriguing to readers, has made him seem almost simple, immature, unreasonable, and ultimately, unbelievable, especially when there is no convincing reason for it, and considering Reacher's repeated assertion that he is "always happy." In Running Blind, I became very impatient with Reacher's stubborn refusal to assimilate even to the point of asking for and wearing clean clothes. I can't believe that anyone who grew up under military strictures as Reacher did--it's all he's ever known--could possibly be comfortable looking as disreputable as Reacher must look, wearing the same clothes--not to mention the same underwear!--for days at a time, and to appear finally, at a party important to someone he loves, in the same clothes, now smeared with paint! His lifestyle gives the Army and his army training a bad name and looks not so much like characteristics of a different kind of man as of an author's manipulation of the reader. I'm equally disappointed in Childs' unconscionable disruption of the one longstanding, terribly important relationship in Reacher's life, done for no other reason than to put him "out there" so that he can get involved in other cases, other bad guys, and, of course, other women. My quarrel with the character of Reacher aside, I can't help liking him and I find Child's writing imminently readable. Although I knew the identity of the villains in both Tripwire and Running Blind long before Mr. Reacher explained things to us, and although Childs failed to make clear the identify of the colonel who was reading and marking the list in RB--was that the padre colonel?--he manages to maintain good narrative flow and suspense. Still, I keep thinking of how the great Donald Hamilton would have handled this character. Childs should take a page (no pun intended) out of Hamilton's best writing and allow Reacher growth and change and maturity before he becomes ridiculous to the point of absurdity and wears out his welcome both in our towns and on our reading lists!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Overblown and half-baked.
Review: This is a great novel for adolescent sex addicts who 1. don't know anything about the military, 2. think the best way to keep a job is to insult your employers, 3. think it's cool to wear the same clothes day after day, 4. would like to commit sexual harrasment themselves.
The dialogue is simple and extensive, which keeps the pace fast.
What is most astonishing are reviews on the cover calling Mr. Child's efforts a 'masterpiece' and 'spectacular'. My response: a roll of the eyes and moan of "Good Grief!".

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not realistic
Review: What woman finds a man who doesn't use toothpaste, deoderant, or clean underwear, and never changes clothes attractive? Maybe a cave woman. I couldn't enjoy the book thinking of the poor people in a car or on a plane with the reeking Jack. The ending with him, of course, with a single crashing blow breaking the neck of the killer and the F.B.I. saying "now we own you", well this part wasn't even a one star. The book had a lot of potential, but was disappointing.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: An Action Comic for Ten-Year-Olds
Review: I read a lot, and some fraction of what I read is junk, but this book goes way past my junk tolerance level. Jack Reacher, the central character, is a mere cartoon. Some of the blurbs in the paperback edition compared Reacher to Dave Robicheaux or Spenser or Travis McGee, but each of these guys has a real, complex personality. Reacher just never comes alive. And it's hard to see how he could. He inhabits a book devoid of a single believable situation or person. It's an action comic for ten-year-olds, translated to prose.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Books 4 & 5 (see Echo Burning) in the series....
Review: that Lee Child writes about his pseudo-hero, Jack Reacher, are less than satisfying.

To be sure, I read both at almost a single setting, because Child has an uncanny way of absorbing your interest while reading the book. It is after you've finished, and think about your reactions, that you'll wish Running Blind was as good an outing as the first 3 Reacher novels.

There's a killer loose in this novel, and the victims are three women, all of whom have a tie in the past to Jack Reacher, while in the military. Naturally, with crime scenes that are incredibly far-fetched, the FBI is sniffing around for a serial killer...and Jack is a prime suspect. Once he is off the hook, the FBI decides to use him to help find the killer. It's a plausible theme, with an interesting M.O., but Child loses his way in the story.

To begin... Jack needs to be on the road, not settled down with Jodie; Child does find a creative way to take care of that. But, despite the excitement of the tale, the story is unsatisfying, much of the characterization missing or lacking, and there are the usual editing errors you find in each Child work.

I'm hanging in there with the series, because Reacher is one of the more interesting (if over the top) leading characters developed in serial thrillers in the last few years, but Running Blind could have, should have, been a much better story.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: One novel - two titles?
Review: What book is "The Visitor" from Lee Child? Looks like "Runnig Blind". Under different titles same books??


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