Lee Child’s Jack Reacher is back with the release earlier this month of The Midnight Line, the 22nd book in the series. The Reacher books are hugely popular, but fail to garner much in the way of critical respect. Here are five reasons why the public love Reacher and why critics should…
Jack Reacher
Reacher is without a doubt one of the most original, complex and compelling characters in crime fiction. An ex-military policeman turned drifter, he has nothing tieing him to the world except for his relentless (and almost psychopathic) desire for justice. He’s the archetypal existential avenging angel – John Wayne, Bogart and Brando rolled into one.
Plot
People often assume the books are full of gymnastic fight sequences and pyrotechnic car chases but Reacher is far closer to Sherlock Holmes than he is to James Bond. In Night School, for instance, there are approximately four pages of fighting – a total of one per cent of the novel.
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