Running Blind

When this book first came out, in the UK, it was called "The Visitor", which makes a whole lot of sense to me: it links to the plot, it's ambiguous about the nature and identity of the visitor and it's easy to remember. Then some editor in the US decided that it sounded too much like Science Fiction and came up with "Running Blind". I can't see any relevance to the plot and it's instantly forgettable but perhaps that's why editors don't get to write novels.

Four things dominated this novel for me: a well thought through puzzle-plot, skilfully revealed, piece by grim piece; the malicious misogyny of the killings, Child's contempt for the FBI and the satisfaction I felt when the increasingly eccentric Reacher finally gets a show more reality-check.

The Reacher reality-check comes at the beginning of the novel when Reacher's impromptu vigilante intervention in a protection racket gets him entangled with the local police and the FBI. In any sane world, Reacher would have finished this encounter either in prison or in a psych ward or both. Reacher sees himself as outside the law. He feels entitled to do violence in whatever he sees as a good cause. He only seems fully engaged with the people around him when he is causing mayhem. This is what makes him such a compelling character in a thriller. It's also what would get put locked up in real life. Of course, in the novel, Reacher is rescued by his lawyer girl-friend and cuts a deal that sets up the rest of the novel.

Still, I don't read Reacher for insights into real life. I read him because the plots are ingenious, because I enjoy his amoral aggression in the cause of right (usually one or more women who need to be rescued or revenged) and because, at least some of the time, I wish there really was a Reacher or two out there making things right.

In this novel, the FBI are depicted as sleazy (a female agent displaying herself to keep Reacher "in hand"), incompetent (profiling techniques that are fundamentally flawed) and more interested in taking care of their own than in getting the job done. As usual, it's lucky for them that Reacher is along to do their job for them.

The puzzle-plot in this one is truly ingenious. No, I'm not going to tell you what it is. I've seldom read a serial killer book where it was so hard to figure out HOW the killing was done. Even when Reacher helps the FBI put most of the pieces together, the answer still isn't clear. For me, this is a real strength in a thriller.

The women being killed in this book have all already been betrayed and abused by men in positions of power while they served in the Army. I was surprised and pleased to see that Child took the time to make at least some of these women real and help see the damage that had been done to them and the lives they were rebuilding. Of course this makes their deaths more poignant but it makes the manner of their deaths truly monstrous.

The prose in this novel isn't go to win any prizes. It often reads more like directions to an actor in a TV script: "He did this. Then he did that. Then he moved to the right. Then he sat down." but somehow the sparse style, written in the third-person, keeps Reacher an enigma.

By the end of the novel, Reacher has nothing left but his folding toothbrush and a desire to be somewhere else. This makes him the perfect catalyst for the next novel where a smart, violent, emotionally unavailable man is needed to thwart evil-doers. I wonder if it also makes him an archetype for a male hunger for a particular type of freedom, based on detached competency and uncompromised integrity? show less

From the premise to the murder weapon, Child doesn't even pretend to try to tell a plausible story. But just as with the entire fantasy genre, realism is hardly the point. Because if the reader is able to suspend disbelief it's a good story, and very satisfying despite the numerous flaws that would bury most books.

What saves it is the man himself, Jack Reacher. Despite his prodigious strength and skillset, he's presented as a deeply flawed individual. Impulsive, selfish, and self-destructive, attentive to every detail yet so afraid of being trapped that his damaged brain can't retain his own zip code or bear the baggage to even travel with a spare pair of underpants. From a serial killer, Chinese gangsters, Syrian mobsters, hardened show more criminals, the FBI, the US Army, to a white shoe law firm, no one can stop him from doing whatever the fuck he wants. He's obviously extremely unhealthy, yet we can't help but feel fascinated and even somewhat jealous of his utter disdain for conventional desires to be comfortable or secure, let alone rich or powerful. He's like an impecunious hermit living in a cave, but without even the cave, the quintessential peripatetic drifter skirting societal norms as he roves from place to place, ever seeking but never finding. show less

When we left Reacher at the end of the previous novel, he had a house and a girlfriend and his nomadic days seemed to be behind him. We find him in the same spot here - except as expected, he is not really adapting well to his new life. The girlfriend is not a problem, the "stay in one place and have a home" is.

So when he sees a small business owner being hassled for protection, he decides to help - handing FBI enough ammunition to blackmail him into helping them (and even that would not have been enough if they had not gone after Jodie as well). And why do they need him? Because someone is killing women - all of them ex-military, all of them connected to his past as an MP. He was really a suspect for awhile - until someone died while show more he was talking to the police and that became an impossibility.

Child adds a second narrator - the killer's - which is slowly revealed to be a psychopath. Between that and the third person narrative the story start twisting and turning and throwing all kinds of red herrings. Reacher does not take the blackmail kindly, even if he complies, and adds his own agenda into the whole story.

By the time the solution comes it almost feels like the last possible option. And yet, it is not - working back from the solution you can see the hints and foreshadowing, the assumptions which go unchecked for a very long time - and the string of women that could have been still alive if they had been. The other story - the protection rackets also gets its closure - its development is weaved into the bigger one. And the personal story of Reacher gets to a new place - Jodie is off to London, he is preparing to sell the house - and the play at domestication is done.

Another solid story from an author who knows his craft. It works as a standalone but the backstory adds a richness into the characters.

PS: This novel ended up with two titles - the original one for UK (The Visitor), the other for USA (Running Blind). Both fit in different ways although I prefer the UK one. Why the US market needed a new title is almost cute - apparently it was seen by Putnam (the original US publisher) as sounding too much like a science-fiction novel so they had to change it. show less

Reacher is up to his ears in murder victims in this fast paced book. Readers are often put off by the violence and sheer size of Reacher but he's actually more of an intellectual man. Ex army women are being killed by a serial killer. The only pattern between them is that they had all filed sexual harassment charges then left the military AND they all died in their bathtubs covered in como paint. Reacher is thought to be the killer but when he is cleared, the FBI blackmails him into finding the real killer. Plot twoists keep you guessing right up to the end.

The reviewer reached the last word of the book and threw it across the room. It was a large room with two windows looking out on a quiet city street. In front of the windows was a couch facing inward. It was a red antique couch, its color matching the red in the oriental rugs on the floor. There was a large oak desk in the room on which sat a flatscreen monitor. The monitor displayed a web browser open to goodreads.com, the text on the page asked "What did you think?"

The reviewer didn't know what to think. He'd wanted to rate the book even lower than the last of its series but he'd rated that one one star, the lowest rating possible. He could go back and change it to two stars, since that rating was partially in reaction to the sadism show more he was forced to read in it. Otherwise, it was clearly better than the one he'd just thrown.

Throwing a book was something he'd just read about before and never imagined himself doing it. He was a rational person, a smart person, not prone to impulsive acts, but this book demanded some kind of physical response. Burning it would suggest censorship, tearing the pages out would leave him with too much to clean up afterwards. So throwing it would be. He was careful not to let it hit anything breakable.

In flight, bullets are affected by three separate forces: gravity, air resistance and wind. Gravity pulls down on the bullet, causing it to drop below the line of sight. Air resistance (or “drag”) slows the bullet with a force proportional to the square of the velocity. Bullets from most rifles travel at super sonic speeds. At these speeds, the mathematics needed to determine the drag is so complex that tables of coefficients are required to do the ballistics calculations.

A book, even one with a hard cover, has too much air resistance to cover much distance and even so, this was a small room. The book hit the wall and fell straight down, landing open to page 53, which was a prime number.

This book did not totally follow the formula established by the three which preceded it. In certain respects it remained the same. It had the endless detail, not really relevant to the story but used to maintain the suspense over time. The villain, though not deformed, was ugly and unlikable. There were women in danger. Law enforcement was crippled by rules which Reacher was able to ignore. There were the observations about military culture and criminal culture and masculine culture and feminine culture. Reacher understood them all while those around him were mainly oblivious. And there was a deadline that needed to be met, just in time.

The reviewer had believed that formulas were a bad thing, making books too predictable and cliche ridden. After reading this book, he'd discovered he was wrong about that. He learned that certain aspects of the formula were necessary to keep the reader involved. Reacher needs to be better trained and stronger and smarter than anyone else but in this story, he was often wrong and his strength and training less important except in a few scenes. The reader needs to identify with him and feel good doing so. He needs to follow a code of behavior which is superior but in this book, he tongue-kisses another woman while still paired up with his girlfriend.

The story needs to be plausible and the false leads need to be satisfying. This story was consistently implausible and the false leads way too false. A padre who is also a colonel showing up just at the "right" time? Another colonel with a list hidden in his drawer? The ending was too hokey to be believed and made the red herrings look like the deliberate manipulations they were.

Even throwing the book was unsatisfying. At least the addiction is broken. I need not read the next book in the series. I no longer care what happens next.

At several points in this book, Reacher felt trapped. He wanted to be a drifter and a loner but instead owned a house and was in a relationship.

I, too, felt trapped reading the series because of its addicting formula, but I have now broken free. In some ways, I will miss the addiction. The books are easy reading and flow over you while being undemanding. Reading them is like having the TV on in the background to feel less lonely, even though you aren't really watching.

But the TV show has to follow the correct conventions to fulfill its role as a safe companion in an otherwise scary world. show less

There’s a saying in retail: One bad experience can undo ten good ones. The previous Jack Reacher novel, Tripwire, was that bad experience. The final surprise was obvious and there was a lot of wasted time getting to it. It made me forget how much I enjoyed the previous two. Running Blind is back to form. A difficult problem to be solved and disreputable FBI agents both forcing cooperation and getting in the way. I saw this solution coming too but that’s okay because: A) I hit on it closer to the end, and B) the story leading to the revelation was compelling. Entertain me and I don’t care if you tip the ending on page one.

There are so many twists to Running Blind that it might feel a little like walking through a haunted house. You never know when something is going to pop out at you, but because stuff does pop out at you, and with alarming frequency, you come to expect the surprises. They might not even shock you over time. The premise of Running Blind is former military women are being murdered all over the country. The cause of death is a mystery. There are no fatal wounds, no signs of a struggle, none of the women defending themselves, there wasn't even forced entry into their homes. The commonality between each murdered victim besides military connections is Jack Reacher. Of course. What makes this story like all the others is that government show more officials keep trying to pin the murders on Reacher. He's always guilty in every book. What makes this story slightly different from the rest is this time Reacher has a serious girlfriend, a lawyer to help bail him out. show less