Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child

This novel is the story of Jack Reacher’s revenge upon the people who mess with him, or anyone of his friends. The novel begins with a vague prologue describing a murder of a man by being thrown from a helicopter. After the murder, the novel resets, starting over with the main character, Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher is a content man, who lives with only the clothes on his back, a folding toothbrush, and a quickly dwindling ATM account. One day however he receives a message from an old friend from a special investigators unit that he, and several others, including the messenger, served in during the army. Neagley, his old friend, brings the message that another man from the special investigators unit was killed, murdered by being thrown from a helicopter. The novel quickly speeds up, however not much more seems to happen. A small number of minor characters are introduced, including 2 other members of the “old unit” Reacher served with. These four characters sift through ten’s of pages, seeming to accomplish nothing the whole while. Eventually through miraculous luck on the main character’s parts they
fill in blanks spaces in the mystery of who killed their friend. Several more murders of the characters’ old relations are discovered, and more pieces to the puzzle are added. Lee Child begins to reveal a terrorist plot using a new missile which adds to the confusing plot. Yet again, the main characters receive a generous helping of luck and discover the murderers. They move in to kill them and uncover the terrorist plot, but two of the bands of mystery solvers are captured becoming hostages. Reacher and Neagley, the two main characters run in, magically skirting around all of the “bad guys”. Reacher hides himself in the helicopter these killers use, and waits for them to bring the two captured “good guys” onto the helicopter. Later, after the helicopter takes off, Reacher jumps out, and essentially saves the day, knocking three remaining “bad guys” out of the helicopter and taking the pilot out on landing. Reacher easily stops the terrorists from putting the missiles (that everyone had forgotten about, including the reader) together and prevents thousands of lives from being lost.
All in this entire book was cliché, involving predictable character stereotypes, predictable plot, and virtually no surprises. This plot wasn’t a mystery, it was just plain confusing. The story seemed to drag on without end, as the four “good guys”, Reacher, Neagley, O’Donnell, and Dixon, are led in an endless breadcrumb trail which backtracks multiple times, and causes a monotonous setting to be created. This monotone setting begins to be hated even more as these four characters always end up going over the same speculations about murder, their friends and trying to uncover the sinister plot. Sometimes, I began to wonder if I was reading the same page twice, or if perhaps I was reading the script to Lost.
The reason I picked up this book was mainly because my dad recommended it to me. I decided to give it a chance, but I was severely disappointed. I would not recommend this book, however it is easier for a reader to critique writing than to praise it. Readers should give it a chance, but only the truly dedicated to finishing might still be hanging on at the end.