Scribbler UK

The Jack Reacher books get a lot of praise so I was looking forward to this first full tale having prepared the ground with the 'origin' short story Second Son.

I went into it with my eyes open - it would be an easy read, violent and thrilling with twists and turns that would keep me reading avidly until the end.

Except it was none of those things really.

I don't consider myself a literary snob, but it is true that I read very little from what is considered the mainstream, and never have really. This reminded me of why.

When I say it wasn't an easy read I don't mean because of it's complex prose, I mean because I just couldn't be bothered to read it very often.

The story is ridiculous, the secondary characters paper thin and there is a distinct lack of the expected grit here. It is also littered with outrageous and unbelievable coincidence which, while I won't spoil actual events, I will admit that I found so shockingly bad on one particular occasion that I put the book down in disgust for a good week.

Eventually I got over that and ploughed through to the finish, but it failed to impress me significantly more right up to its hurried and unsatisfying ending.

All that said, I will give the series a second chance at some point, as I have read that the first book is far from the best. We shall see.