Killing floor

Jack Reacher never had this much trouble when he was a major in the military police. Now the doorman at a Chicago blues club, he witnesses the kidnapping of FBI field agent Holly Johnson. The three paramilitary types who snatch Johnson outside a dry cleaner mistakenly assume the strolling Reacher is with her and snatch him, too. Reacher and Johnson, whose father is one of the top-ranking military men in the country, quickly form an alliance in order to survive and also to determine their captors' motives. And there's the problem with this otherwise satisfying novel. Right-wing militias are the villains du jour of late, but it's almost impossible to take their portrayals beyond cliche. That's the situation here. Reacher is a wonderfully taciturn, insightful protagonist, and Holly Johnson is every bit his equal, but their antagonists are essentially faceless. It's hard to hate the villain you don't know. Reacher remains a promising hero; next time, he deserves a more worthy opponent. --Wes Lukowsky

Although the tale is built around a coincidence as big as the author's talent, beautifully detailed action scenes and fascinating arcana about currency and counterfeiting enliven this taut and tough-minded first novel by British TV writer Child. Out of sheer restlessness and rootlessness, 36-year-old ex-military policeman Jack Reacher persuades a Greyhound bus driver to make an unscheduled stop in Margrave, the small Georgia town where Reacher's brother, a U.S. Treasury official, just happens to have been murdered a few hours earlier. Reacher doesn't know about his brother's death or suspect his presence in the town. Indeed, when he's arrested in a local diner for being a conspicuously mysterious stranger, Reacher tells the detective who interviews him that he dropped off the bus to investigate the death of Blind Blake, a guitar player murdered in Margrave 60 years ago. Downsized out of the military, Reacher has cutting-edge investigative and killing skills that come in handy the moment he learns of his brother's murder. This combination of events is so unbelievably convenient that it almost overwhelms the book's solid writing. The reader expects the other shoe to drop-for Reacher to be revealed as an undercover agent, or some such; but it never does. Otherwise, Child writes with a hand as strong and steady as steel. Margrave is a wonderful creation, a seemingly picture- perfect community under the care of a mysterious foundation where the streets are always swept and the people who run the tiny local businesses get grants of $1000 a week to stay open. Two scenes of brutal violence in a nearby prison are rendered with exquisite precision, as is a stalking murder inside the baggage area of the Atlanta airport, and the vast counterfeiting conspiracy that Reacher's brother was probing is wholly credible. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The transient Jack Reacher finds himself in tiny Margrave, Georgia, and is almost immediately arrested, if briefly, as a murder suspect. Imagine his surprise when he discovers that one of the victims is his brother, a brilliant U.S. Treasury agent. Reacher himself is no slouch; a former military policeman, he can dispatch villains with an astonishing array of weapons, including various parts of his body. In the company of a straight-arrow detective and a beautiful lady cop, Reacher soon unearths a conspiracy stretching through the little town and beyond. Blood flows freely, terrible threats are made and carried out, and body parts accumulate. First novelist Child, a former television writer, stretches coincidence outrageously in this would-be noir outing, whose hero is creepily amoral, violent, and generally unpleasant. Only large pop fiction collections need consider.‘Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Information Svcs., Ridgecrest, Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Welcome to Margrave, Georgia--but don't get too attached to the townsfolk, who are either in on a giant conspiracy, or hurtling toward violent deaths, or both. There's not much of a welcome for Jack Reacher, a casualty of the Army's peace dividend, who's drifted into town idly looking for traces of a long-dead black jazzman. Not only do the local cops arrest him for murder, but the chief of police turns eyewitness to place him on the scene, even though Reacher was getting on a bus in Tampa at the time. Two surprises follow: The murdered man wasn't the only victim, and he was Reacher's brother Joe, whom he hadn't seen in seven years. So Reacher, who so far hasn't had anything personally against the crooks who set him up for a weekend in the state pen at Warburton, clicks into overdrive. Banking on the help of the only two people in Margrave he can trust--a Harvard-educated chief of detectives who hasn't been on the job long enough to be on the take, and a smart, scrappy officer who's taken him to her bed--he sets out methodically in his brother's footsteps, trying to figure out why his cellmate in Warburton, a panicky banker whose cell-phone number turned up in Joe's shoe, confessed to a murder he obviously didn't commit; trying to figure out why all the out-of- towners on Joe's list of recent contacts were as dead as he was; and trying to stop the local carnage, or at least direct it in more positive ways. Though the testosterone flows as freely as printer's ink, Reacher is an unobtrusively sharp detective in his quieter moments--not that there are many of them to judge by. Despite the crude, tough-naif narration, debut novelist Child serves up a big, rangy plot, menace as palpable as a ticking bomb, and enough battered corpses to make an undertaker grin. (Book-of-the-Month Club featured alternate selection)

Former military policeman Jack Reacher is drifting through Margrave, Georgia, looking for the grave site of an old blues pioneer when he's arrested for the execution-style murders of two men. He's cleared and ready to leave town when he learns that one of the dead men is his brother, Joe, an undercover agent for the Treasury Department. Now it's personal. Reacher follows the trail to the world of international counterfeiting, but he still needs to figure out how the jerk-water town of Margrave fits into the picture. This accomplished, mature first novel brings to mind the classic motion picture Bad Day at Black Rock, in which everyone in town is in on the dark secret except the good man in the middle. Book-club sales and a healthy publicity campaign should generate greater than normal demand for unknown writer Child. If he keeps writing this well, however, he won't be unknown for long. ((Reviewed March 15, 1997)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

Jack Reacher never had this much trouble when he was a major in the military police. Now the doorman at a Chicago blues club, he witnesses the kidnapping of FBI field agent Holly Johnson. The three paramilitary types who snatch Johnson outside a dry cleaner mistakenly assume the strolling Reacher is with her and snatch him, too. Reacher and Johnson, whose father is one of the top-ranking military men in the country, quickly form an alliance in order to survive and also to determine their captors' motives. And there's the problem with this otherwise satisfying novel. Right-wing militias are the villains du jour of late, but it's almost impossible to take their portrayals beyond cliche. That's the situation here. Reacher is a wonderfully taciturn, insightful protagonist, and Holly Johnson is every bit his equal, but their antagonists are essentially faceless. It's hard to hate the villain you don't know. Reacher remains a promising hero; next time, he deserves a more worthy opponent. ((Reviewed May 1, 1998)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

The transient Jack Reacher finds himself in tiny Margrave, Georgia, and is almost immediately arrested, if briefly, as a murder suspect. Imagine his surprise when he discovers that one of the victims is his brother, a brilliant U.S. Treasury agent. Reacher himself is no slouch; a former military policeman, he can dispatch villains with an astonishing array of weapons, including various parts of his body. In the company of a straight-arrow detective and a beautiful lady cop, Reacher soon unearths a conspiracy stretching through the little town and beyond. Blood flows freely, terrible threats are made and carried out, and body parts accumulate. First novelist Child, a former television writer, stretches coincidence outrageously in this would-be noir outing, whose hero is creepily amoral, violent, and generally unpleasant. Only large pop fiction collections need consider. Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Information Svcs., Ridgecrest, Cal. Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews

Although the tale is built around a coincidence as big as the author's talent, beautifully detailed action scenes and fascinating arcana about currency and counterfeiting enliven this taut and tough-minded first novel by British TV writer Child. Out of sheer restlessness and rootlessness, 36-year-old ex-military policeman Jack Reacher persuades a Greyhound bus driver to make an unscheduled stop in Margrave, the small Georgia town where Reacher's brother, a U.S. Treasury official, just happens to have been murdered a few hours earlier. Reacher doesn't know about his brother's death or suspect his presence in the town. Indeed, when he's arrested in a local diner for being a conspicuously mysterious stranger, Reacher tells the detective who interviews him that he dropped off the bus to investigate the death of Blind Blake, a guitar player murdered in Margrave 60 years ago. Downsized out of the military, Reacher has cutting-edge investigative and killing skills that come in handy the moment he learns of his brother's murder. This combination of events is so unbelievably convenient that it almost overwhelms the book's solid writing. The reader expects the other shoe to drop for Reacher to be revealed as an undercover agent, or some such; but it never does. Otherwise, Child writes with a hand as strong and steady as steel. Margrave is a wonderful creation, a seemingly picture- perfect community under the care of a mysterious foundation where the streets are always swept and the people who run the tiny local businesses get grants of $1000 a week to stay open. Two scenes of brutal violence in a nearby prison are rendered with exquisite precision, as is a stalking murder inside the baggage area of the Atlanta airport, and the vast counterfeiting conspiracy that Reacher's brother was probing is wholly credible. (Mar.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews