Running Blind (Jack Reacher) | Lee Child

Running Blind (Jack Reacher) | Lee Child | Running On Empty

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Running Blind (Jac...

	Running Blind (Jack Reacher) Lee Child Jove, 2007 - 512 pages average customer review:based on 122 reviews view larger image
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Across the country women are being murdered by a killer who leaves no evidence, no fatal wounds, no signs of struggle, and no clues to a motive. They are, truly, perfect crimes. In fact, the only thing that links the victims is the man they all knew: Jack Reacher.

Another Child classic

As usual Jack Reacher stumbles into a situation that has nothing to do with him, but he is a modern day night in shining armour and he decides to track down the culprits. A series of vitims fall foul of an unknown murderer. The killer's victims have only one thing in common--all of them brought sexual harassment charges against their military superiors and all resigned from the army after winning their cases. The manner, if not the cause, of their deaths is gruesomely the same: they died in their own bathtubs, covered in gallons of camouflage paint, but they didn't drown and they weren't shot, strangled, poisoned, or attacked. Even the FBI forensic specialists can't figure out why they seem to have gone willingly to their mysterious deaths. Reacher isn't sure whether the killings are an elaborate cover-up for corruption involving stolen military hardware or the work of a maniac who's smart enough to leave absolutely no clues behind. This compelling, iconic antihero dead-ends in a lot of alleys before he finally figures it out, but every one is worth exploring and the suspense doesn't let up for a second. The ending will come as a complete surprise to even the most careful reader, and as Reacher strides off into the sunset, you'll wonder what's in store for him in his next adventure. Another great book in the series

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Running On Empty

Make this my fourth entry into the world of Jack Reacher, having already read the first three books in this series. Of those, I loved Killing Floor, didn't love Tripwire and enjoyed Die Trying. When I started Running Blind, I was just happy to be back with Jack Reacher, a character who guys can relate to and women can fall for. Who doesn't like the brooding bad boy type with the Robin Hood vigilante mentality?

I was so caught up in this book right from the beginning. As a matter of fact, I emailed a friend of mine just to say how much I was enjoying the Child's book I was reading. At the time of that writing, she was already on his current book so I was far behind her. This book was everything Tripwire wasn't in my opinion. It was fast paced with Reacher helping the FBI, obviously under duress, and his relationship with Jodi is still in tact. As with all of Jack's appearances, things will start to fall apart shortly.

While Jack is always chasing someone very smart, we all know that he is that much smarter. In this case, it's a serial killer bent on doing away with former Army employees who have left the force due to sexual harassment. The FBI profilers have narrowed it down to the exact type of person the killer is....someone exactly like Jack. This hunt will take Jack from the east coast to the west coast and back again until he figures out who the culprit is. We already know he's smarter than they are so we know he's going to be successful.

I loved this book until......it got to the ending. I see many other reviewers have complained about this so just add me to the list. When are authors going to stop neatly tying up their books with ridiculous scenarios. I have something else to say and I don't want anyone who hasn't read the book yet to read what I'm going to say so please move on to the next review.

I said move on to the next review or else you're going to read something you don't want to read. Okay so here's my beef. Am I crazy? Weren't there more than two paragraphs in the book where a colonel is sitting at his desk, forty to forty-five minutes away from Quantico, looking at the list of eleven women, four of which had already been killed. If this wasn't the killer, who the heck was he? Was he the chaplain who appears out of nowhere in the end. A chaplain who comes walking, not even driving, up a hill in the Pacific Northwest. And I'm so sick of authors making everything an inside job. It's like if a woman gets killed, the authorities first look at the husband. I'm now beginning to think that every time I pick up a mystery, I should just look at the cops investigating the case to come up with the killer. I'm sick of it, I tell you. Okay, enough of my rant. I'd love any of you who have read this book to please leave me a comment so I can know who the heck this colonel was and what part he played in the book.

Up until the ending, this book was almost five stars for me....the ending dropped it down to three and a half.

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Some character discrepancies bother me ...

I love Jack Reacher novels--he's a great anti-hero. I was given a bunch of Lee Child books and have been reading them in no particular order. I assumed this was the first in the series because of so many character discrepancies ... what a disappointment to discover it wasn't. For example, Reacher checks his watch (even though in other books he never wears one because he has an odd always-knows-the-time ability), he lives in a house and has a girlfriend (even though he's all about nothing to tie him down), and he's under surveillance for a week and doesn't know it (that's not the Reacher I know and love!). I was ready to forgive these and other "errors" when I thought it was just the beginning of a developing character for the author, but not as a third or fourth book. I can suspend my disbelief when reading Child novels, but appreciate character consistency.

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