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larrydavid 's review for:
Tripwire
by Lee Child
The actual plot of this thriller took too long to get going - a thinly characterised clueless businessman losing his business for cliche reasons is not interesting enough to hang a thriller on, and the introduction of the parents of the missing man comes too late and is too underdeveloped to generate sympathy. It is incompetent stuff, pretty much. Perhaps a bit surprising for the third book in a popular series, but nothing too noteworthy.
There are two things I feel are worth commenting on. The first is when Reacher is presented with the red herring (which semingly disproves one of his theories of the case) he quite literally instantly starts questioning his entire life and skill set, and essentially decides he is no longer the man he was. I suppose the implication here is that this 6 foot 5 and I believe 250 pounds military policeman (I am not sure of these facts as this information was not presented very often in the text) has quite simply never once been wrong. I suppose this fits with what I've seen of the series so far, but is pretty silly.
The second issue is that this book features a romantic relationship from Reacher's past, when as a soldier he fell in love with the 15 year old daughter of his commanding officer. At the time he was 24, and she was 15. This is already deeply creepy and that is before we get into the descriptions of him buying her a necklace she wanted as a child, that she has held on to until the time of the book. The relationship develops, and it includes text where Reacher thinks of himself as like her uncle or older brother. I'm sorry to say this, but I'm not sure a mediocrely written airport thriller is the best vehicle to explore themes of borderline incestuous hebephilia, and even though when the characters do develop their relationship they are both (enthusiastically) consenting adults, I had been too grossed out by all the preceding to root for them as a couple.
There are two things I feel are worth commenting on. The first is when Reacher is presented with the red herring (which semingly disproves one of his theories of the case) he quite literally instantly starts questioning his entire life and skill set, and essentially decides he is no longer the man he was. I suppose the implication here is that this 6 foot 5 and I believe 250 pounds military policeman (I am not sure of these facts as this information was not presented very often in the text) has quite simply never once been wrong. I suppose this fits with what I've seen of the series so far, but is pretty silly.
The second issue is that this book features a romantic relationship from Reacher's past, when as a soldier he fell in love with the 15 year old daughter of his commanding officer. At the time he was 24, and she was 15. This is already deeply creepy and that is before we get into the descriptions of him buying her a necklace she wanted as a child, that she has held on to until the time of the book. The relationship develops, and it includes text where Reacher thinks of himself as like her uncle or older brother. I'm sorry to say this, but I'm not sure a mediocrely written airport thriller is the best vehicle to explore themes of borderline incestuous hebephilia, and even though when the characters do develop their relationship they are both (enthusiastically) consenting adults, I had been too grossed out by all the preceding to root for them as a couple.