Without Fail (Jack Reacher) - Hardcover

Child, Lee

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399148612 ISBN 13: 9780399148613

Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2002

Synopsis

Hired by the Secret Service to test their shield around the new vice president of the United States, ex-miliary copy Jack Reacher discovers that a team of assassins is already planning a hit on the vice president. 40,000 first printing. BOMC. Lit Guild. Mystery Guild. Doubleday Book Club.

About this title

Review:

What better way to test the security surrounding a U.S. vice president-elect than to hire someone skilled in the killing arts to penetrate his protection? Assassination strategy, though, is only part of the assignment facing Jack Reacher in Without Fail. This restive, blunt-edged ex-military cop must also determine whether recent threats against VP-to-be Senator Brook Armstrong are legitimate or are primarily intended to embarrass the perfectionist head of Armstrong's new Secret Service detail, M.E. Froelich, who happens to have been a girlfriend of Reacher's late brother.

If Without Fail lacks the emotional urgency of Lee Child's previous novel, Echo Burning, it still barely lets the reader catch a decent breath between plot crests. Jack and his fetching yet formidable colleague, Frances Neagley, must figure out how warning letters to Armstrong are being delivered into the Secret Service sanctum, whether the senator is at risk because of something political or personal, and who staged the demonstration murders of two innocent men also named Armstrong, first initial B. Unfortunately, a few twists (including the source of a thumbprint applied to the threats against Armstrong) can be figured out in advance, and the story is light on character development. A tiny breach in Reacher's reclusive carapace opens as Froelich transfers the love she once felt for his brother toward him, and there are suggestions that Neagley may have depths of feeling just waiting to be plumbed. However, other players are mere ciphers--the sacrificial victims of an action-oriented yarn. --J. Kingston Pierce

About the Author:

Lee Child is the author of six award-winning Jack Reacher novels.

About this edition

• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0399148612
• ISBN 13: 9780399148613
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 374