Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Thank you, Mr. Child, but no thanks. Jack Reacher #21 (my count) was my last one. I didn’t even finish it. I’m done! The very very good Reacher #1 “Killing Floor” was published in 1998 - 18 years ago. By then Reacher was (as you can read in “Night School”) 35 years old. That means right now he’s around 55. That’s not old, of course. But it’s not young either, but signs of some aches can be felt pretty well. Obviously Mr Child doesn’t have a plan how to deal with Reacher when he gets older (hint: have a chat with Mr. Connelly - his hero, Harry Bosch is ageing nicely - like a very good red wine.) And that’s probably the reason why “Night School” is situated in 1996, when Reacher was still an active MP. And there is no lone wolf Reacher. He’s part of a modern cloak and dagger team. The actions of this team can be found in any 3rd tier spy-, military novel coming from one of the writer factories (won’t mention any names here, of course). In two words: Pulp Fiction. A bigger part of the story takes place in Hamburg, Germany. There’s a fat Chief of Detectives with some special kind of food habit: “He ate sausage and mashed potatoes for breakfast.” That’s utter nonsense of course. You gonna find more people in Boise, Idaho, who are having elephant trunk steak for breakfast than Germans with sausage and mashed potatoes for that meal. By the way: such a Chief of Detectives reports nothing, zero, to a US Consulate or US Military HQ. Not today and not even back in 1996. Utter nonsense again. Talking about: If there would be a Chief of Detectives (that’s not a rank or function within the German police organisations) - he wouldn’t be issued a government car; not a Volkswagen, not an Opel and certainly not a Mercedes. This book’s part “In 1943 they had started a firestorm that all but wiped Hamburg out. Flames a thousand feet high, temperatures of a thousand degrees, the air on fire, the roads on fire, rivers and canals boiling. Forty thousand dead in one raid. Britain had lost sixty thousand in the whole war. They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. Hosea, one of the twelve minor prophets,” got nothing to do with the story. Page filler or a Brit’s (Lee Child’s) sentiment vs. Germany? Hamburg is the most anglophile city in Germany, if not on the whole European continent. I didn’t like the last 4 or 5 Reacher books already, but never gave up hope that Lee Child and Jack Reacher could find a way back to the days of glory. In vain! And that’s why I am done now. No more. Thanks for the ride over the the last 17-18 years, Mr. Child. It was nice, but it isn’t anymore. Edit 11/13/2016 I gave me lots of pain to finish the book. It didn't get better, it got worse. Big big disappointment. Don't waste your money.