Tripwire - the unstoppable Jack Reacher

Lee Child (see picture) has done it again. He has created a thriller that is both simple and yet complex, and, as any thriller should be, hard to put down. Tripwire is the third outing for Jack Reacher, our ex-Military Policeman and now drifter. We find him digging out swimming pools in the Florida sunshine by day, and minding the door of a dodgy club at night. Always tall and strong, this work has now made him even more formidable. When a private detective comes looking for him on behalf of a woman he has never heard of, he feigns ignorance, but when the detective is murdered, he sets off to find out why. This takes him to New York and directly into conflict with Victor "Hook" Hobie - a villain who will take extreme measures to hide his 30-year-old secret. It also stirs up feelings from the past, when he is reunited with Jodie, the daughter of his ex-boss. Queue some hot and steamy loving! Jodie is a strong female character - yes, she is loved up, but she is also a force to reckon with in her own right ... smart, beautiful (of course) and brave. And she is not the only interesting female character, which is fantastic to see in what is usually a very macho genre. Lee Child fills the pages with action and snappy dialogue, though it may be argued that he does linger a little bit too long on the description of the vast array of weaponry and cars that pepper the story. Tripwire is a real page-turner and if you can stand the violence (Victor Hobie is NOT a nice man), it's a book that will keep you interested right to the last page. Reacher is a character that, despite his faults, you do want to spend more time with and I'm already seeking out the next instalment.



My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 544 print pages.
Price I paid: free, borrowed from library via Kindle.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio CD; ebook.