Killing Floor
Jul. 17th, 2013 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI finally got around to listening to the first Jack Reacher book - Killing Floor - by Lee Child, and really enjoyed it. Perfect commute/gym workout listening, as I had hoped.
I found it unintentionally quite funny in terms of the presentation of the uber-macho protagonist and his attitudes, but I gradually warmed to him as the book progressed, and I was actually quite impressed by some aspects of the book. The inciting incident involves a gigantic co-incidence, which the author gets around by having the protagonist point out in his narrative that it's a gigantic co-incidence, and then just move on. Whilst this is a legitimate way of getting around the holes in your plot, it's probably not really the best way...
Still, any book that has the hero saved by noticing a correctly placed apostrophe that has been misinterpreted by the bad guys has my vote! Plus, I did like the resolution of the love interest - much more realistic than you usually find in books like this. I was also pleased by the protagonist attacking someone from behind and justifying it by saying that it was much more sensible than going the honourable, face-to-face route you usually see in the movies.
The narrator was good, too, which always helps, and I was particularly impressed by his James Earl Jones impression that provided the voice of one of the main characters.
So, overall, a good find, and I'll definitely be looking up more in the series.
I found it unintentionally quite funny in terms of the presentation of the uber-macho protagonist and his attitudes, but I gradually warmed to him as the book progressed, and I was actually quite impressed by some aspects of the book. The inciting incident involves a gigantic co-incidence, which the author gets around by having the protagonist point out in his narrative that it's a gigantic co-incidence, and then just move on. Whilst this is a legitimate way of getting around the holes in your plot, it's probably not really the best way...
Still, any book that has the hero saved by noticing a correctly placed apostrophe that has been misinterpreted by the bad guys has my vote! Plus, I did like the resolution of the love interest - much more realistic than you usually find in books like this. I was also pleased by the protagonist attacking someone from behind and justifying it by saying that it was much more sensible than going the honourable, face-to-face route you usually see in the movies.
The narrator was good, too, which always helps, and I was particularly impressed by his James Earl Jones impression that provided the voice of one of the main characters.
So, overall, a good find, and I'll definitely be looking up more in the series.
