The Killing Floor

I'm only here because of the Amazon series (which was pure action comfort food) There's such a mythos around Jack Reacher and author Lee Child has reached the lofty heights where his name appears larger than the actual title of the book.

But man, this was not good. I'm wondering if even Jack Reacher fans think this is good. Sure the 6'.5, 250 pound ex military police officer is here, complete with hands like dinner plates - but he feels like a pre-release version. Reacher is a pedantic, overly excited mess, prone to singing out loud and administering high fives. He's a muscular kid's show host, a steroidal Steve from Blue's Clues packing heat.

Yes I do tend to literary fiction, introspective novels pondering the human condition but I was ready for some dad-level action. The dude-bro equivalent of a beach read. Nothing complicated or fancy - I was ready to meet this book half-way. But I just couldn't.

Childs just doesn't let up with the short sentences. Tweets are verbose in comparison to his sentence length, and it just grates after awhile. And yes I fully expect the trouble around every corner and a woman in every port through line but even that reads like a 12 year who's learned about romance from reading letters to Penthouse. It's clear that Lee Childs used to write for TV in the 90s as this has all the internal logic of an episode of the A-Team. I wanted to like this more but I just don't get it.