Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Jack Reacher returns in another fast-moving, action-packed, suspenseful book from Lee Child.
You can leave the army, but the army doesn't leave you. Not always. Not completely, notes Jack Reacher-and sure enough, the retired military cop is soon pulled back into service. This time, for the State Department and the CIA.
Someone has taken a shot at the president of France in the City of Light. The bullet was American. The distance between the gunman and the target was exceptional. How many snipers can shoot from three-quarters of a mile with total confidence? Very few, but John Kott-an American marksman gone bad-is one of them. And after fifteen years in prison, he's out, unaccounted for, and likely drawing a bead on a G8 summit packed with enough world leaders to tempt any assassin.
If anyone can stop Kott, it's the man who beat him before: Reacher. And though he'd rather work alone, Reacher is teamed with Casey Nice, a rookie analyst who keeps her cool with Zoloft. But they're facing a rough road, full of ruthless mobsters, Serbian thugs, close calls, double-crosses-and no backup if they're caught. All the while Reacher can't stop thinking about the woman he once failed to save. But he won't let that that happen again. Not this time. Not Nice.
Reacher never gets too close. But now a killer is making it personal.
Lee Child
Lee Child, previously a television director, union organizer, theater technician, and law student, was fired and on the dole when he hatched a harebrained scheme to write a bestselling novel, thus saving his family from ruin. Killing Floor went on to win worldwide acclaim. The Midnight Line, is his twenty-second Reacher novel. The hero of his series, Jack Reacher, besides being fictional, is a kindhearted soul who allows Lee lots of spare time for reading, listening to music, and watching Yankees and Aston Villa games. Lee was born in England but now lives in New York City and leaves the island of Manhattan only when required to by forces beyond his control. Visit Lee online at LeeChild.com for more information about the novels, short stories, and the movies Jack Reacher and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, starring Tom Cruise. Lee can also be found on Facebook: LeeChildOfficial, Twitter: @LeeChildReacher, and YouTube: LeeChildJackReacher.
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Reviews for Personal
525 ratings85 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Transparent plot, quite padded.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I like Lee Child's books and particularly the character of Jack Reacher, but this book left me disappointed. It was not that the plot was uninteresting rather the way London was written about. Some of the scenes made me feel like it was some banana republic's capital streets that were being described and that really spoilt it for me.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Entertaining, but not Child's best. This is much more a procedural than a character study. Reacher has turned a little robotic, despite crossing paths with interesting villains and complicated women. And when the misdirection of his original investigation into two snipers is revealed in the book's final pages, it is anticlimactic, as the misdirection was painfully obvious from the early pages. Although I will certainly read the next one, this one was workmanlike and less than gripping.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jack Reacher fought a little person in 61 Hours, so definitely time he fought a giant in Personal. Oh, and some other stuff happens... like beating up a giant!
Lee Child's continued adventures of Sherlock Homeless - Jack Reacher - have reached (boom tish) their nineteenth instalment. Reacher is manipulated into searching for a former army sniper he had put away 16 years ago, a sniper who has taken a shot at the French President and is threatening to shoot some other world leaders at the G8 summit. This is the first Reacher novel that isn't set in the US, seeing him travel to Paris and London, for his manhunt. Of course, it is never as simple as a manhunt, especially when the sniper bears a 16 year old grudge.
What I love about picking up a Lee Child novel is starting the novel and realising I'm already 50 pages into the action before I realise it. Lee effortlessly steers you through the story and keeps you entertained. He makes you appreciate just how good an author he is compared to his contemporaries. It was also refreshing to have Reacher leave behind his small town problem solving in favour of an international, high stakes, manhunt. Not that this stops Reacher beating up people and solving problems: wouldn't be a Reacher novel without that.
Hard to find fault with the latest Reacher adventure. The only criticism would be that it feels like a "standard" Reacher adventure, despite the break in location tradition. My own observation is that since 61 Hours Lee's writing has become taut and that he skilfully plays with the reader, making him my favourite author. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A great easy read, enjoyable, fast pace, plausible. Liked it enough to try reading a few more of the Jack Reacher novels
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Disclaimer: I received this book for free from the publisher for review.This was pretty standard fare for Reacher. I have to confess that I have not enjoyed his most recent adventures as much. They still have close to the same level of tension, but there seem to be fewer twists and turns. In this book, I saw the conclusion a mile away and I don't usually try to figure it out. Also, there hasn't been much development in his character recently. Perhaps this is too much to ask, but this book seemed tailor made to allow us to see how he was when he dealt with a previous case versus now. He also shows a small amount of fear that could have been expanded on.All that being said, I still found this a very fun read. I definitely group this as a guilty pleasure. I sometimes am uncomfortable with myself enjoying it but I find it much more palatable than the more patriotic (and conservative) thrillers. This particular Reacher, while not the best, was still suspenseful enough to have me drive through the last few pages. While being nothing special, this is still a good easy escapist read. I wouldn't recommend it over the earlier Reachers but its better than some of the most recent. I'd ask Mr. Child to bring back a bit more complexity and suspense. But this newer Reacher is comfortable and perhaps that is what reading thrillers is really about.Recommended for thriller readers.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just a fan of Jack Reacher; gradually working my way through the series. In this story, Jack returns to the military to repay a favor by hunting down a man Reacher put in prison 15 years ago. Kott is suspected of taking shots at the President of France. Reacher travels to Paris and London with a female government analyst to get to the bottom of this international problem. As usual, there is so much more to the story than I initially thought.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A sniper takes a shot at the French president. The shot was so precise that there are only a handful of snipers in the world who could have made it. One of those who stays on the list as others are eliminated for one reason or another, is a guy that Jack Reacher put behind bars years ago.
This is a pure Reacher story and one of the better ones. Jack Reacher and his folding toothbrush rarely disappoints and this time surely did not. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perfectly entertaining.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Same old, same old and I still love them. Great escape, great plots, great character. I am going to read every last one of them.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Love that guy!!!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoy the Jack Reacher series; although they seem to be becoming repetitive. That does stop my desire to read.listen to them all. This is a short story which is an enjoyable quick read
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I understand that with thriller series there's a certain suspension of realistic events that come with the plots especially the concurrent problems Reacher seems to stumble into time and time again. Yet generally speaking the problems he does stumble into in and of themselves are somewhat realistic, and that is where Personal stands out from the rest of the series, and not in a particularly good way.The series of events is just so absurdist that whilst the novel is reasonably filled with investigation and action the overarching theme you take away is just how far away from reality the whole thing is. Then there was the rather creepy comment about a woman's pants "Was there a finer place to be, than where those jeans were?" was this written by a teenage ghost writer? After that I was genuinely surprised that things didn't take the all to common path of Reacher sleeping with another female character, yet somehow we avoided that here.Overall, yes it's a reasonably entertaining novel, there's enough there for it to be read as a stand alone novel, yet it just wasn't up to the usual standard. It didn't really add much to the series and in my opinion you wouldn't be any worse off skipping over this one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed it, the story skipped along very well with lots of detailed information that I hope I never need, and some well placed and interesting hints that I kept in mind but it didn't ever spoil the surprises. I wish they could have had more to eat though - the hamburgers were giving me heartburn and the rest of the time I was hungry.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I feel like my days with Jack Reacher are over. Personal is a nice book, but Reacher doesn't appeal to me anymore.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jack Reacher is doing his thing, traveling around the country without a steady job, living each day as it comes.He's contacted by a high ranking military officer from his past who needs his help.Someone has shot at the president of France. The shot hit the glass in front of the president but didn't wound him. The officials triangulate the direction from where the shot was fired and observe that it was three quarters of a mile from the president.Only a few snipers have the ability to hit a target from that distance. Since Reacher is a noted sniper, he's asked to help identify the shooter. In addition, a sniper who Reacher arrested when he was a military policeman has just been released from Leavenworth and has disappeared. This man could have a grudge against Reacher and so Reacher is asked to check him out. In addition, there is an upcoming G8 summit scheduled in France and if the sniper was using his shot at the French president as a warm up, the results could be catastrophic.Reacher works with a bright young operative, Casey Nice. She's a rookie analyst who needs her Zoloft to calm her nerves and help her sleep. Reacher must rely on her assistance and act as a substance counselor.Lee Child always writes exciting action fiction and this book hits the mark. The author shows Reacher eliminating the possible suspects and when he discovers that the shooter has allied with a London gang, Reacher goes into action.Somewhat of a formula novel but still exciting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No matter how unlikely, the Jack Reacher thrillers are always a good read. I prefer the ones like this where Reacher is working with others on a problem.Wandering around London is good fun too and I found it quite amusing to see the author explaining to an American audience what he's talking about e.g we got on the highway, otherwise known as the M25. And there's a Welsh spy.NB you don't currently have to pay for a plastic bag in England (only Wales and Scotland) but you will have to very soon.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This definitely made up for Not a Drill, the short story that came out a month or two ago. This one had me thinking all the way through, and was a worthy addition to the Reacher storyline.
The only downside is that now I have to wait a year until the next one. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I don't have much to say about Jack Reacher's 19th outing. It's average for the series; there having been much better installations and a few worse. If you like Reacher, you'll enjoy watching him outsmart and out punch the various bad guys. I do think that Child is either starting to get tired of his famous hero and is coasting. There was some lazy writing and several scenes that felt like warmed-over adaptations from earlier books, but Reacher's still an interesting guy, a Sherlock Homeless as one character calls him, and surely good for a few more episodes.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5fun, a kind of 'The Jackel' remake, but without the snipers POV. Almost back to the best Reacher. But not quite.Someone took a shot at the french president and as Jack knew him, Jack has been sent out to find a sniper. The army left a coded message which attracted his attention, and so off he goes to england to find out if one of his former customers has been a naughty boy again after getting out of jail. And because it's semi-official whilst still being undercover he get a state/CIA minder to go with him, a young women about the age of one of his sergeants who had gotten killed in the line of duty. Jack's always felt guilty for that, but she accepts none of his solicitude. There are various mind games and red herrings with groups of gangs who may or may not be providing aid and shelter so the sniper or snipers. But there's no messing with Jack and even he's careful of the civilian casualties. However England doesn't fare well again from Child's pen, despite him having been born there, and Jack having travelled and been stationed there many times, he is too often surprised by the differences of a foreign land divided by a common language. Better than some of the previosu ones, but still not brilliant any more.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another excellent book in a fine series. His clinical approach to analysis still serves him quite well and his physical prowess is there when needed. Interesting plot with some nice twists.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack Reacher is contacted to go to Europe to stop a sniper at the G8 summit, who he arrested 16 yrs previously when he was military police. He's not sure that this man could be the sniper thinking that 15 yrs in jail would have taken it's toll but he goes with a newie CIA agent on her first assignment. I thought this book was a little repetitive with the dialog but did enjoy the London setting.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lee Chid can't write his Reacher novels fast enough for me. I devour them when they come out. He's such a fun character. I still can't believe they had Tom Cruise play this guy.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed reading Reachers latest. As usual, the Government, manages to entice Reacher into helping them catch a killer. For the most part, the story takes place in Europe and the plot thickens. I enjoy Reachers thinking and how the author lays it on paper. I highly recommend the read. Looking forward to the next.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another fun ride from Lee Child. The character does not get old or trite. Always a good time - easy read.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This one was oddly disappointing for me. Somehow the compelling suspense of the previous Reacher books seemed to be completely missing. Perhaps it was the fish out of water story that placed Reacher in Paris and London and under the somewhat control of various spy agencies as he battled an assassination plot. Reacher is of course never out of his depth but this foreign angle just didn't interest me as much. The main villain is pretty much absent for the whole book so the confrontation element was reduced and the intermittent conflicts with minions were just somewhat odd (one of the lead baddies is of goliath-like size). The connections between Reacher and his allies during this one also felt distant. All of these elements which normally are the key winning points of a Reacher book were missing for me. No real great Reacher one-liners either.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hmm, sad to say this is my least favourite of the Reacher books, just not as exciting/engaging.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I received this book as an early reviewer.So I have found that you can categorize the Reacher books broadly into two categories. The first type are the books where Jack wanders into some random town and discovers some nefarious goings on. These goings on may or may not be a danger to national security. Regardless, with the application of his finely tuned military police instincts and intellect, and a refreshing willingness to inflict gross bodily harm to anyone who gets in his way (often with his trademark elbow smash to the face or neck or equally useful headbutt) Jack solves the problem, puts the Baddies out of business and leaves town without waiting for thanks. (Or possibly fleeing prosecution for the trail of broken and dead bodies he has left in his wake.)The second type of book either flashes back to his military career or is some way connected to something that occurred when he was in the military. In those books Jack, with the application of his finely tuned military police instincts and intellect, and a refreshing willingness to inflict gross bodily harm to anyone who gets in his way (often with his trademark elbow smash to the face or neck or equally useful headbutt) Jack solves the problem, puts the Baddies out of business and leaves town without waiting for thanks. (Or possibly fleeing prosecution for the trail of broken and dead bodies he has left in his wake.)[Personal] is one of the latter type. If you are a fan of Reacher you will enjoy this book. The premise is that someone takes a shot at the French Prime Minister. It is determined that the shot was taken from some incredible distance and that it had to have been one of four un-accounted for snipers. One of these four is a sniper Reacher put in prison while he was in the Army. The army determines that Reacher is their best bet at finding this guy so they contact him and more or less set him loose. Chaos ensues. I will be the first to admit that the Reacher books tend to be similar to each other and I would be hard pressed to remember the plot of any given book. That being said, if you enjoy good ass kicking adventure, there really isn't anyone who does it in a more entertaining way. The book doesn't need to be read in conjunction with any other. If you are new to the Reacher books, you will have no problem picking up the story and understanding Reacher's back story.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Note: This review stems from a reviewers copy.Like most others reviewing the book, I'm a fan of Reacher. Though I'm glad to see Mr. Child place Reacher in a different situation than the usual backwoods, small town with corrupt men, I didn't find this book engrossing. Enjoyable, yes, but forgettable. I guess I have grown tired of Reacher and his exploits and I think 61 Hours would have been a great place to end the series.The plot is decent and the writing is typical Child. This isn't William Faulkner, and nobody expects it to be. There's not much character development, either. I think Child could take Reacher into new realms - after all, he's not young anymore and it would be better to show him really challenged by other younger, stronger bad guys. Why isn't Reacher questioning his past, questioning his future, questioning what he's done with his life? That's a normal part of aging. I guess Reacher's not normal at all. One particularly gruesome death doesn't phase Reacher at all. He actually leaves the blood and brains on his jacket and is nonchallant about it all. That makes Reacher seem to be a sociopath, with no empathy for anyone. I don't recall him being like that in earlier books. And, ultimately, that's not a hero I want to be reading about in the future
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a very good read. Reacher is pulled in from the road (back to the army again for a brief stint). They are bringing him back to find a sniper who he brought down before. The book (like all Reacher novels) is a page-turner and hooks you in pretty early. What I liked:- It is classic Reacher - the character we all like with all of his roughness and incredible observation skills- I like the travel - down south and to Europe a few times - adds some local twists to the story.- New characters that may have staying power including Casey Nice, CIA who they developed well. She is flawed and interesting at the same time.- Some other players in story during the action sequences that we could see again.- He puts a beating on some bad guys ...What I liked less:- A little heavy on how he was missed with a snipers bullet....almost implied he knew the wind and where to stand when walking out a door with another guy without any indication of a hit. This is a bit much even for Reacher.- The climax showdown scenario at the end seems to be a recurring theme and just similar happened in a recent Reacher novel....was surprised we went here again.- The military / government connection was ok - but I miss the 'guy on his own using his skills to adapt to anything' Reacher on the road. I just find that leads to more unpredictable scenarios.That's pretty much it....it is good Reacher - but not the best.One last thing I was not sure I liked. It is in the first person.....so 'Reacher said nothing' is changed to 'I said nothing'....not sure I like that.