Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Echo Burning - by Lee Child



This is book #5 in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series.  Reacher is in Texas and needs to get out of town quickly. Luckily, as a hitchhiker, he almost immediately gets picked up by Carmen Greer.  As it turns out, this was not so random an event and ends up being most fortunate for Mrs. Greer.  Her husband, who she claims beats her, is getting out of jail in a few days, and she hopes to pick-up someone who will kill him and solve her problems.   While Reacher is no assassin for hire, he ends up immersing himself in the situation and ultimately solving the mystery of what is really going on.  As usual, no one truly understands what they are up against.

In my opinion, this is nowhere near the best of the Reacher tales.  The action is less and I found myself somewhat conflicted about many of the other characters.  In the end, however, there is still a lot of the classic Reacher formula in this story to like.