| Product: |
Die Trying - Lee Child |
| Date: |
28/10/01 (35 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: 549 pages - not to heavy to read in bed!
Disadvantages: Once you have read it then that is one less visit with Reacher you will have!
Not quite my favourite thriller but pretty damn near the top of the list, “Die Trying” starts off with Reacher, an ex-army MP Major, continuing his wander around the US getting to know his own country after spending nearly all his life staying in Army Bases. Reacher is a tough looking man, taller than average and full of battle scars – not the type you would want to meet in a dark alley after dark. He knows how to defend himself and I would say is a tad better than average at doing so!
He is visiting Chicago and whilst walking round a corner he spots a woman in need of a helping hand – she is struggling out of the drycleaners with a huge pile of clothes and to make matters worse she is using crutches. Being a gentleman Reacher stops to give her a hand. As they continue along the street they are held at gunpoint and shoved into the back of a car. Case of wrong place and wrong time for Reacher (and it always is!!).
Car is swapped for van and they travel, handcuffed together and lying on a cold hard floor for about 2000 miles to the north of the country. At this point Reacher has decided that he will stay and defend this poor invalid girl, even although he could have escaped ages ago if he wanted to.
As it turns out the girl is an FBI agent and had the same thoughts herself in reverse about helping Reacher, she feels a sense of duty as an FBI agent. They are taken to an abandoned mining town which is pretty much cut off from civilisation with mountain, rivers, trees etc and only one road. In reading it, to me it seemed as if it were some sort of cult, everyone had to do what they were told by the leader or they were killed (or disappear suspiciously!!), but it turns out that these people are more of a militia and the girl is the important hostage – and not because she is a mere FBI agent!!
(I was actually disappointed slightly – on the grander scheme of it she wasn’t that important at
all, just well connected!!)
The book goes on to describe them sneaking about and trying to discover what is going on rather than merely escaping, and as always they form a romantic connection as well as just friendship (not surprising since Reacher seems to be the perfect man!!!). The FBI are of course on the job looking for their agent and they use some pretty hi-tec stuff to do so, which is all described really well. With all the descriptions from sneaking about, the FBI and the town in general I really could imagine I was there! One really funny part is when Reacher plays on the conspiracy theories of the group and persuades one redneck that he has computer chips or something planted in him – I can’t recall exactly the way it goes but basically the redneck lets him sneak out of his ‘prison’ in fear of the government getting him with laser beams etc!
I don’t want to give away too much and certainly don’t want to give away the ending so I don’t want to go into the plot anymore.
In general for the book I really enjoyed it and with this one as with others in the series I have felt really sad when I get to the end……. Not in a bad way but in the way that I will have to wait to see Reacher again, the author makes you bond so well with him that he really feels like a friend!! (Yeah okay so I am a crazed lunatic with imaginary friends!!!). I like the way that the author can move between what is heppening with Reacher to what is going on at the FBI and back again so that you know that everything is happening at the same time.
The author Lee Child is actually British but you would never know it from reading the book, and he wasn’t even in the army (well it doesn’t mention it anyway in the front of the book) so he must have really worked hard at researching!
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