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Loading... Bad Luck and Troubleby Lee Child
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. TerryWeyna | Jun 10, 2009 |   Jack Reacher book 11 This series is totally addictive; hard not to love Jack Reacher a loner with few ties, tough ex-military, and one that is fanatically interested in codes, numbers and probabilities. The story starts high above the California desert, when a man is sent free-falling into the night. Frances Neagley, a woman from Reacher's old military unit manages to find him using a code that only members of their unit would recognize. Decoding her message, Reacher reunites with the remaining survivors of his team and plunges into the heart of the conspiracy that is killing old friends. They soon find themselves embroiled in government operations and international terrorism. This action packed novel is as good as it can get, Mr Child has created well drawn heroes and a solid story with elaborate schemes. Its tale is gripping from the start and you find enough twists and turns and double crossing along the way to keep you entertained to the last page. This is an unbelievable nevertheless enjoyable read full of excitement from start to finish. (  )Tigerpaw70 | May 23, 2009 | Jack Reacher, a former military policeman “back in the day” gets a message from the past through his ATM account: his former colleague, Frances Neagley, is looking for him. How does he know this? There is a deposit of one thousand and thirty dollars in his account: 1030.00. It takes him a moment to decide that it’s not a prime number, not a square root, not a cube root, and so on, until he settles on the simple message “10-30” which is military code for urgent assistance needed. There is a lot of idiot-savant-type showing off of obscure math ability first, a talent not only repeated throughout the book but shared by his military colleagues as well! There were eight of these colleagues with whom he worked “back in the day” (a phrase repeated more than once too often): Tony Swan, Jorge Sanchez, Calvin Franz, Frances Neagley, Stanley Lowrey, Manuel Orozco, David O’Donnell, and Karla Dixon. Now someone seems to be picking them off, and Jack and Frances, and the others that remain set out to find out why. Reacher is more disheveled than the typical thriller hero but the two women meet the usual thriller requirements of smart, beautiful, and sexy. The motto of their group is “same as ever: We investigate, we prepare, we execute. We find them, we take them down, and then we piss on their ancestors’ graves.” There are plenty of suspenseful moments in the book, even though the “bad guys” are evident from the beginning, the clues are transparent, some of the coincidences are absurd, and the groups’ expertise at multiplying, deriving cube roots, and analyzing fractions on the spot seems more than unrealistic. It’s not the best of thrillers, nor the worst; but good enough for a rainy day or an airplane trip with waits and connections. (  )nbmars | May 17, 2009 | second in lee child series...Reacher a bad-ass mofo...scared of no one or nothing...could be outnumbered....old war cronies send cryptic S.O.S.....group unites to find out why a few of them were killed....Defense contractor selling illegal arms....i'm sure it goes on today--just no real life Jack Reacher to rescue us (  )halta | Apr 5, 2009 | An excellent book although I didn't think it was one of his best Reacher novels. Jack Reacher is back in action with three of his ex-army buddies chasing down the group who threw four members of their old unit out of a helicopter at 3000 feet. As can be expected sparks fly but not quite as strongly as we're used to. Strange to find that the legendary MP unit is not invincible. However, all in all a great read and please keep them coming Mr. Child. (  )Violetta | Nov 5, 2008 | 0.036 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0385340559, Hardcover)Ex-military cop Jack Reacher is the perfect antihero--tough as nails, but with a brain and a conscience to match. He's able to see what most miss and is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Each book in Lee Child's smart, addictive series (The New York Times has referred to it as "pure escapist gold") follows the wandering warrior on a new adventure, making it easy to start with any book, including his latest gem, Bad Luck and Trouble. However, be forewarned...once you meet Jack Reacher, you'll be hooked, so be prepared to stock up on the series. --Daphne Durham
Who Is Jack Reacher? A Video from Lee Child
A Note from Lee Child  Two years ago I was on a book tour, promoting that year's new Jack Reacher novel, One Shot. One particular night, the event was held in a small town outside of Chicago. The date was June 21st. As I was giving my talk and answering questions and signing books, that date was nagging away at the back of my mind. I knew it had some significance. I started panicking--had I forgotten my anniversary? No, that's in August. My wife's birthday? No, that's in January. My own birthday? No, that's in October.Then suddenly I remembered--it was ten years to the day since I had been fired from my previous job. That was why and how I had become a writer. That night in Illinois was a ten-year anniversary of a different sort, somewhat bittersweet. And ten is a nice round number. So I started thinking about my old colleagues. My workmates, my buddies. We had been through a lot together. I started to wonder where they all were now. What were they doing? Were they doing well, or struggling? Were they happy? What did they look like now? Pretty soon I was into full-on nostalgia mode. Ten-year anniversaries can do that to a person. I think we all share those kind of feelings, about high school, or college, or old jobs we've quit, or old towns we've moved away from. So I decided to make this year's Jack Reacher book about a reunion. I decided to throw him back among a bunch of old colleagues that he hadn't seen for ten years, people that he loved fiercely and respected deeply. Regular Reacher readers will know that he's a pretty self-confident guy, but I wanted him to wobble just a little this time, to compare his choices with theirs, to measure himself against them. The renewed get-together isn't Reacher's own choice, though. And it's not a standard-issue reunion, either. Something very bad has happened, and one of his old team-members from the army contacts him, by an ingenious method (it's hard to track Reacher down). She gives him the bad news, and asks him to do something about it. He says, "Of course I'll do something about it." "No," his friend says. "I mean, I want you to put the old unit back together." It's an irresistible invitation. Wouldn't we all like to do that, sometimes? --Lee Child Secrets of the Series: A Q&A with Lee Child Q: Why do you think readers keep coming back to your novels? A: Two words: Jack Reacher. Reacher is a drifter and a loner with a strong sense of justice. He shows up, he acts, he moves on. He's the type of hero who has a long literary history. Robin Hood, the Lone Ranger, Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings, Jack Reacher--they're all part of the same heroic family. Reacher just ratchets it up a notch. Maybe more than a notch. Why is he so appealing? Most often people say to me it's his sense of justice; he will do the right thing. Even though there is no reward in it for him, even though there is often a high cost to be paid by him, he will always try to do the right thing and people find that reassuring in today’s world when not too many people are doing the right thing. Q: Jack Reacher gets compared to James Bond, Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne, each of whom now has a "face." In a movie, which actor do you think could fill Reacher's shoes? A: That's the toughest question. The thing about Reacher is he's huge; he’s 6'5" tall and about 250 pounds. There aren’t any actors that size--actors tend to be small. So we aren't going to find a physical facsimile for Reacher because there aren't any. We have to find someone who is capable of looking big on the screen. Many people have said to me a young Clint Eastwood would have been perfect--we need someone like that who has the vibe of a big intimidating man. Hopefully there will be somebody available like that. It's also a question of finding somebody ready to sign up for more than one movie. They want to make a franchise, minimum of three, and that makes it a little bit harder. Q: What research is involved in writing one of your stories? A: My research is all kind of backwards. I don't go to the public library for three months and take notes in advance; instead my best research is by remembering and adapting. I read, travel, and talk to people just for the fun of it, filing away these interesting little snippets to the back of my mind and eventually they float to the surface and get used. The problem is, I approach writing the book with the same excitement and impatience that I hope the reader is going to feel about reading it. But even so, I need a certain measure of technical intrigue in the story. There is specific research I have to do as I go along, anything that's a small detail; a car, a gun, a type of bullet. I will check that out at the time. But, that's what I call the detail--the broad stuff is the stuff I already know. Meet Jack Reacher
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Bad Luck and Trouble opens with a scene of horrifying violence against one of Reacher's former brothers-in-arms. As a result of this event, Reacher receives a message -- an oddity in itself, given that all he owns are the clothes on his back, a travel toothbrush, an ATM card and a passport. With no fixed address or telephone number, he's a hard guy to get ahold of. But he didn't train his personnel for nothing, and between Frances Neagley's detective work and his own, they are able to meet up in a city far from Reacher's wanderings and miles away from Neagley's home without ever exchanging a phone call or email. In a similar fashion, if a tad less mysterious and difficult, two others show up in short order. But the remaining three of the Army team of special investigators -- those who did the most difficult, bloody and behind-the-scenes work military police can do -- have disappeared.
The team votes to work together to find their comrades, with Reacher as their leader. And then the book is off like a hound after a rabbit, dealing out plot point after plot point, leaving the reader short on oxygen -- and short on sleep, at least until the last page is turned. One thing is certain: you do not mess with the special investigators.
Reacher is more violent and even oddly greedy this time around, increasing the "anti" quotient of his "anti-hero" persona. He has no qualms about murder, much less robbery. He constantly compares himself to the other special investigators, all of whom seem to be happy in their fairly conventional lives with houses, wives, children and actual jobs with actual wages. The reader does the same: how much longer Reacher will be able to perform the type of manual labor to which he customarily resorts to pay for his motel rooms? He's got to be in his early 40s by now, and digging ditches can't be as much fun as it used to be. It makes me eager to see how this experience will affect Reacher, which means I'm already looking forward to next year's thriller by Lee Child.