[.ca] Die Trying (ISBN 0515125024)

From Amazon.com:
Television writer Lee Child's otherwise riveting first thriller, Killing Floor, was criticized by some reviewers because of an unconvincing coincidence at its center. Child addresses that problem in his second book--and thumbs his nose at those reviewers--by having his hero, ex-military policeman Jack Reacher, just happen to be walking by a Chicago dry cleaner when an attractive young FBI agent named Holly Johnson comes out carrying nine expensive outfits and a crutch to support her soccer-injured knee. As Holly stumbles, Reacher grabs her and her garments--which gets him kidnapped along with her by a trio of very determined badguys. "He had no problem with how he had gotten grabbed up in the first place," Child writes. "Just a freak of chance had put him alongside Holly Johnson at the exact time the snatch was going down. He was comfortable with that. He understood freak chances. Life was built out of freak chances, however much people would like to pretend otherwise." Lucky for Holly--whose father just happens to be an Army general and current head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thus making her a tempting target for a bunch of Montana-based extremists--Reacher still has all the skills and strengths associated with his former occupation. And Child still knows how to write scenes of violent action better than virtually anyone else around. --Dick Adler

The Master of Mayhem:
Lee Child's "Jack Reacher" novels have a refreshing purity about them: simply action, mayhem, and brutality wrapped around straight, unadorned plots. Testosterone runs high, larger-than-life bad guys take evil to new depths, cliffhangers that would embarrass Indiana Jones. And if there is such a thing as a literary equivalent of film's slow-motion action scenes, then Lee Child is the master. Guns don't simply shoot a bullet; Child talks muzzle velocities, projectile weights, gun barrel chemistry, and the physics of 0.5-inch diameter bullet fired from a Barrett sniper rifle passing through skull and brain. All very violent, and all very entertaining. "Die Trying" is Lee Child's second Jack Reacher novel, and there is no sophomore jinx. Reacher, ex-military cop and veritable walking encyclopedia of all armament, happens on the wrong place at the wrong time in downtown Chicago, finding himself unwittingly in the middle of a kidnapping. The victim: Holly Johnson, a beautiful and brainy FBI agent, but, as it turns out, much, much more. The perps: a band of neo-fascist wacko's - think Waco or Ruby Ridge - about to hatch a plot to declare independence and secede from the United States. Meanwhile, everybody from the FBI to the US Marines tries to find and free Holly, while Reacher works on the inside - as a co-hostage - fights to protect Holly's honor, chastity, and life. Child paints a wonderfully diabolically twisted Beau Borkin as the leader of the cult, and a rather fascinating picture of life inside an extreme right-wing conspiracy. Bottom line: not a novel you'll be retelling to the grandkids, and no literary milestone, but few can verbalize raw power better than Lee Child. A great page-turner, a great diversion, pure entertainment.

One man army:
Die trying is my first experience of Lee Child and his protagonist Jack Reacher. But it definetely won't be the last. The novel starts with a line which goes like: "Joe Smith died because he felt brave." Then we have a tight scene describing the situation farther... That's the way to fire off a thriller! In this book Jack Reacher is a by-stander grabbed by the kidnappers of a young FBI agent. As the author tells all the critics of coincidenses being at the heart of the novel: @It was a freak chance." Truthuly, I don't like coincidences in books, too, but I can forgive them in a good one. This is one of those. Why did the bad guys kidnap a FBI agent? What is being built in a room in a remote Oklahoma location? And who is the man, who cruelly kills the workers, after they completed building? Mr. Child wrights with sureness of a seasoned author, and when he takes a rest from plot turns he gives you the action scenes most authors would die trying to reproduce. It is a rare author indeed, who can talk about velocities, weapon parts and all the technical data, and still keeping it exciting. There are minor points which cost the book one star in my opinion - the main being some things coming out of the blue in the last pages of the novel (these things concern Holly, and I won't say any more of them), but this is really a strong thriller, with a solid plot, hard-as-nails protagonist and the book equivalent of bullet-time scenes of Matrix.

Never met a Jack Reacher book I didn't like:
This is the second book in Childs Reacher series. It's a fabulous series with a hunky larger than life character who is humble, confident, fearless, always out-thinks the bad guys, and really knows how to kill. Jack Reacher lives life only in the present in a way that's a cross between hobo and Zen wanderer -- no possessions, no lasting relationships, no home, no luggage. I started the series with Childs' 2 Reacher books written in the first person -- Persuader,the last, and The Killing Floor, the first. I think they're better for their first-person POV and Childs' dexterity with the character of Reacher. In Die Trying, I loved the hypnotic psychotic snake-charmer like character of the villain Beau Borken, and Holly Johnson is one of Childs' stronger more resourceful female characters. The description of Reacher's journey through the mine shaft is some excellent listening. Dick Hill does an incredible job as reader for all the Reacher books. Recently, I read an excerpt from Enemy, the upcoming Reacher book and was truly surprised at how terse Childs' dialogue is. I highly recommend the audiobook format. I hate Reacher's bad hygiene, worse than ever in Die Trying, and find it unbelievable Holly would touch him for the smell. I mean this is an active man oozing with testoreone, adrenaline, and sweat, not to mention contact with mounds of corpses and crawling through rats in a mine shaft! Couldn't he take just one shower in a 5-day period? Thankfully in later books Childs gets Reacher to water more frequently and gives him a toothbrush. Also those extra long descriptions of a bullet's trajectory -- filler! I did have to suspend belief on a few things. A huge dynamite explosion on the road that did not damage the highway? But this is fiction, and this is a fabulously enjoyable series to listen to. Can't wait for Enemy to be published, the first Reacher book I will read rather than listen to.

Let the action begin:
Lee Childs can write on violence like no other. Lee Childs can discribe a fired bullet with a mathematicians wisdom. Above all Lee Childs writes a story that will cause you to delay interest in anything until consuming it to the last page quickly as possible. I have now read three of his offerings and will continue. His action and near fact fiction fill me with wonder and a grand appreciation for a eloquent writer.

"Birth" of a nation:
In another rapidly paced action thriller, Lee Child hero, ex military policeman and superstar Jack Reacher, as he is inclined to do, unwittingly stumbles into a kidnapping. While ambling down a Chicago street he accidently collides into an attractive, limping and crutch toting woman knocking down her dry cleaning. While helping her pick up her fallen garments, Reacher and the woman are accosted by two gun wielding guys and forced into a waiting car. They are abducted and then transfered and locked into the cargo area of a truck where they are driven to an unknown destination. In short order Reacher learns that his kidnap companion is FBI agent Holly Johnson who is recuperating from torn knee ligaments and on light duty for the moment. She happens to be the daughter of Joint Chiefs of Staff leader General Johnson and also the god daughter of the president. After a long arduous journey, in which Reacher declines several escape attempts to protect the injured Johnson, they finally arrive at an enclosure deep in the forests of northwestern Montana. This geographically secure enclosure is the home of the Montana Militia, a para-military neo-Nazi group headed by a 400 pound behemoth Beau Borken. Borken, a paranoid and maniacal son of a California farmer who blew his head off when the government repossessed his farm, is a ruthless murderer who has no use for the U.S. government. He plans to use Holly Johnson's kidnapping to convert his militia into a separate nation! The FBI gets wind of the plot through a covert operative within Borken's group. Without presidential support they commence an operation to free Johnson. Reacher, of course, while being held prisoner also plots to accomplish the same thing. Childs' follow up to The Killing Floor, while falling a little short of the intrigue is still suspenseful and a worthwhile chapter in a continuing series.