NOTHING to LOSE (Jack Reacher #12) (audiobook) by Lee Child

 

Published by Random House Audio in 2008.

Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 14 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.

I think that I have worked my way through all of the Jack Reacher novels and short stories over the last 5 years. Nothing to Lose is the last one (I think). I read them all out of order, but fans know that that is okay since they were never written in order in the first place.

Sadly, this was one of the weakest of the entire very large collection. 

Reacher is travelling from Maine to San Diego just to see the country. He notes that Colorado has two towns with interesting names very close to one another: Hope and Despair.

The author, Lee Child.

Hope is a pleasant enough place with a hardware store and a hotel and diner. Reacher decides to hike to nearby despair and is immediately arrested for being a vagrant. Technically, he is a vagrant. He has no job, no fixed address and no plans to acquire either. 

Despair locks him up (after a bit of a fight) and runs him through a kangaroo court, finds him guilty and expels him from the town limits, which is about halfway to the town of Hope. Reacher meets up with the police chief of Hope, discusses the weird behavior of Hope's town government. And...he heads back for more.

He also finds a lot more than ever imagined he would...

This book felt disconnected from reality a lot more than the average Jack Reacher book. I don't mean that as an insult to the series, but let's face it - a giant ex-soldier beating the crap out of groups of big men in the middle of the street in every book is just nor normal behavior. 

Anyway, the whole book seemed sort of half-baked all the way through and Reacher's choice on how to end things seemed completely out of character considering the long-term implications (decades, maybe even centuries) of his choice. 

Dick Hill read the audiobook and he is my all-time favorite audiobook reader. He "gets" Jack Reacher.

Despite Dick Hill's reading, I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: NOTHING to LOSE by Lee Child.

THE AFFAIR (Jack Reacher #16) (audiobook) by Lee Child

 

Published by Random House Audio in 2011.

Read by Dick Hill.

Duration: 14 hours, 5 minutes.

Unabridged

Any fan of the Jack Reacher series knows that they are not written in chronological order. The Affair is set in Reacher's later years in the Army. He is a major and, as fans know, he is part of the military police. Chronologically, it is set directly before the events of The Killing Floor, the first Jack Reacher book that was published.

Jack Reacher has been sent to Mississippi as part of a two man team to investigate a murder of a young woman that took place outside of a military base. It is presumed that the murderer was a soldier on base, maybe even the captain of a team of Rangers that have been shuttling in and out of Kosovo on secret missions as part of the Balkan civil war that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia.

That is a problem because this captain is very connected politically. His father is a U.S. Senator that is on the committee that helps set the military budget. 

The author, Lee Child

Reacher is part of a two man team. The other guy has been officially sent to the base to solve the murder - everyone knows he is coming. Reacher has been ordered to assume the role of a drifter - an ex-military guy with no home who has come into town. His job is to keep an eye on the local police and see if they have made any progress on the case and to report it. He has been given multiple warnings that this will be a sensitive case and he should tread lightly. Reacher decides that solving the case would be a good thing, even if it is politically unpopular.

When Reacher discovers that it's not just one murder but three very similar murders of local girls he knows that he is in for much more than he bargained for...

If you have read a few books in this series, you know how they all go. Reacher comes to town, identifies a problem and starts working towards resolving it. Along the way he drinks gallons of coffee, eats in a diner, buys replacement clothing and meets an extremely talented female professional (Lee Child has no problem doling out the talent to women and men in equal measure in his stories) and does a lot of walking.

This was a solid Reacher story. Not the best, certainly not a bad one. A couple of the side stories had some real emotional resonance. The main story doesn't quite hold up to intense scrutiny so don't do that - enjoy the story and move on. 

Not all Reacher books do this, but this one has multiple sex scenes with a fetish thrown in. There were six scenes - I know this because Reacher keeps counting them as part of a series of observations about how the first time is special, the second time can be a better experience and so on. The whole thing got tiresome for me and one of them seemed even weirder since it happened right after an extremely sad and tragic event that had an element of their fetish worked in with it. It would have soured me from it, but I think Lee Child was on a roll of some sort and wanted to keep on going with it.

Dick Hill read the audiobook. Dick Hill is the reason that I quit reading the series as physical books. He is my favorite audiobook reader (sadly, now retired) and I just think that he had a feel for reading Reacher's dialogue. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Affair (Jack Reacher #16) by Lee Child.

NOT A DRILL (Jack Reacher #18.5) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published in 2014 by Random House Audio.

Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 1 hour, 27 minutes.
Unabridged

Lee Child was a prolific writer of Jack Reacher stories. I say was because he recently announced his intention to stop writing those stories. His brother will start writing them instead.

Child wrote numerous books and short stories in no particular order, bouncing around the timeline of Jack Reacher's life. Not a Drill is set in Maine. I presume it fits in on the timeline with the other Reacher stories that take place in Maine and New England.

Jack Reacher is hitchhiking to the end of I-95 at the U.S.-Canada border. Another of his books starts at the other end of I-95 down by Miami, Florida and Reacher makes a point that he wants to have traveled from one end of the road to the other.

Once he gets there, he gets out and is soon picked up by three younger Canadians who are headed to a four day long hiking trip. Their trail starts at one town and ends up at another. Reacher decides to go with them to the trail head because he has nothing else to do. But, when the military shows up, things start to get weird...

Not a Drill is a short story or perhaps a novella (depending on how you want to interpret those terms). To me, it felt like this story was the beginning of a novel that never really blossomed into a book-length story. But, this story is just too short to be much of anything at all. Very forgettable.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found as part of a larger collection on Amazon.com here: NOT A DRILL (Jack Reacher #18.5) (audiobook) by Lee Child.

GONE TOMORROW (audiobook) (Jack Reacher #13) by Lee Child

Jack Reacher vs. The Patriot Act

Published by Random House Audio in 2009.
Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 14 hours, 47 minutes.
Unabridged.

In Gone Tomorrow, Jack Reacher is in New York City, riding the subway after taking in a late night show in a bar. He notices a woman who is exhibiting all of the signs of being a suicide bomber that he learned years ago while being trained in Israel. When Reacher intervenes, he gets way more than he bargained for and gets sucked into a complicated mess and discovers that the powers granted to the federal government by the Patriot Act are not to be trifled with.

The audiobook was read by multiple award-winning reader Dick Hill. He is my favorite reader of the Jack Reacher novels. But, even Dick Hill couldn't save some of the convoluted dialogue that comes from the villain's mouth as the book progresses. I was reminded of the famous line from Harrison Ford as he was filming Star Wars. He told George Lucas, " George! You can type this s***, but you sure can't say it!" 

The villain's lines are so convoluted, so wordy and so long-winded that I can't believe anyone would actually hang around to hear them delivered. There was no way that the author, Lee Child, actually read those lines out loud to see if they worked. I felt sorry for Dick Hill getting ambushed with them.

Nonetheless, the story was good enough to justify 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child.

WORTH DYING FOR (JACK REACHER #15) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published in 2010 by Random House Audio.
Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 13 hours, 45 minutes.
Unabridged.

Fresh off of the action in 61 Hours, Jack Reacher is hitching his way to Virginia. He is nursing his injuries from that adventure and has made it from South Dakota to a lonely hotel in rural Nebraska.

The action in Worth Dying For starts with Reacher drinking coffee at the hotel bar. A drunk patron gets a call. Turns out he's also the local doctor and a local woman called to help her treat a bloody nose that won't stop bleeding. Reacher shames him into going to treat the woman.

Reacher suspects she's a victim of spousal abuse and it turns out he's correct. The doctor has been told not to treat her by her husband's family. They rule the area with an iron fist and maintain a crew of 10 former Nebraska Cornhusker college football players to make sure no one steps out of line.

Reacher steps out of line, though. He tracks down the abused woman's husband, takes out his bodyguard, breaks the husband's nose and heads back to his hotel room.

Reacher is warned: "You started a war. They want to finish it."

Turns out, the warning was correct.

This is my 21st review of a Jack Reacher book or short story. They go up and down. Lately, I've been on a streak of mediocre Reacher stories. I am happy to say that this one was pretty good. It's been padded with too much discussion and extras from time to time, but it was a solid story.

New readers to the series could jump in with this one and not really miss much. In this story, Reacher once again takes on the classic Western role of the drifter that comes into town and helps the locals deal with some bad guys. It's not a new story (even for this series it is the most common theme), but it is a good one.

The audiobook was read by Dick Hill. Hill has recently retired, but I think that he really nails the Jack Reacher novels.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WORTH DYING FOR (JACK REACHER #15) (audiobook) by Lee Child.

Updated January 1, 2025.

ONE SHOT (A Jack Reacher Novel) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published by Brilliance Audio in 2005.

Read by Dick Hill.

Duration: 14 hours, 37 minutes.

Unabridged.

Technically, One Shot is the ninth Jack Reacher book that Lee Child has published, but since Lee Child doesn't write the books "in order" there are two broad time periods that Jack Reacher novels occur in: 1) In the Army, 2) post-Army. This is post-army book. It is also the book that inspired the first Tom Cruise Jack Reacher movie, but if you have seen the movie you can read this book and have an entirely different experience. It inspired the movie, the movie didn't follow it too closely.

Reacher doesn't appear for the first hour and ten minutes of this audiobook. Instead, the readers are witness to a mass shooting in southern Indiana that draws Reacher from Florida because he knew the accused shooter in the Army. Once he arrives, Reacher immediately knows that something off and finds himself in a rare moral quandary. But, Reacher figures out how to proceed once it becomes obvious that someone really wants him to leave Indiana...

I have often wondered when Jack Reacher was going to have an adventure in my native Hoosier state - he goes through it as he wanders America, but never seems to stop. I can't tell if Lee Child, a Brit, actually visited Indiana to research this book - he certainly picks on the presence of the limestone quarries that run through southwest Indiana throughout the book. My guess is that this book is set in Evansville or a fictional hybrid of Evansville, Vincennes and Bedford.

So, how is the story? It's a pretty good mystery that takes a hard surprise turn in the first third of the book and had this reader wondering how all of the little pieces clicked into place until the last few minutes of the audiobook. In that sense, it was a success. But, it moved fairly slowly. This audiobook is 14+ hours long. Editing out an hour would have helped it move along nicely.

Dick Hill read the audiobook. He is my all-time favorite audiobook reader and he is the reason that I quit reading this series as books and only listen to it as audiobooks.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found in multiple formats on Amazon.com here: One Shot (A Jack Reacher Novel) by Lee Child.

THE MIDNIGHT LINE: A JACK REACHER NOVEL (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published by Random House Audio in 2017.
Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 13 hours, 6 minutes.
Unabridged.

Jack Reacher is on the road again in The Midnight Line. Fans of the series know that Reacher just can't stay in one place too long so he is on a bus out of Chicago. The bus stops in a Wisconsin town for a "comfort stop" and Reacher decides to stretch his legs. He is window shopping in a pawn shop window and sees a woman's ring. It is a Class of 2005 West Point ring and he wonders how it ended up there. He is also a graduate of West Point (from 20+ years before that) and he knows that no one just gives up their ring.

Reacher lets the bus go on without him, buys the ring and starts backtracking how it ended up in the pawn shop. Right away, he develops a lot of resistance in the form of lies and eventually a serious attempt to drive him away. Of course, all of this makes Reacher even more determined to figure it out. Besides, what else does have to do...?

This is much more of a detective story than most Reacher books. Along the way, Reacher picks up an entourage of sorts. It is not unusual for him to pick up people along the way, but the vehicles get a bit crowded from time-to-time in this one. Some of the topics come straight from the headlines, others are a little more philosophical. I am rating it 5 stars, but really it's more of a 4.5 stars. It drags a bit about 80% into the book, right when everything starts to come together. But, everything before that is interesting and the ending is as well.

Dick Hill read this audiobook - he has read most of this series and he is great. There's a reason why he has won so many audiobook awards.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE MIDNIGHT LINE: A JACK REACHER NOVEL by Lee Child.

NIGHT SCHOOL (Jack Reacher #21) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published by Random House Audio in 2016.
Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 13 hours, 7 minutes
Unabridged.

Fans of Jack Reacher know that the Lee Child does not write his books in a linear pattern - he bounces around on the Jack Reacher timeline quite a bit. Night School is set in the 1990's when Reacher was still in the military. Reacher has just come off of a secret mission in the Balkans.  He helped find and eliminate war criminals from the fighting that erupted in the wake of the collapse of Yugoslavia. It was the kind of mission that the government was glad to have done, but not glad to acknowledge.

Reacher receives a medal in a private ceremony and then is sent off to an inter-agency training seminar in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. But, it turns out that there are only two other people at this "training" - an FBI agent and a CIA agent that are also fresh off of missions that the government was glad to have done, but not glad to acknowledge.

The State Department has gathered them together as a team of go-getters to figure out what is behind a piece of intelligence that they have picked up thanks to an embedded operative - a terror network is offering $100 million for something to a seller in Germany. Reacher and company are being asked to figure out what is for sale and how they can get it before the bad guys do without losing the operative...

This is my fifteenth Jack Reacher book and it was one of the best. It's got some action, but mostly it is a detective story with really big consequences if it is not solved soon.

Dick Hill read this audiobook. He reads most of this series and that is a very, very good thing because Dick Hill has nailed the narration and character voices perfectly.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Night School by Lee Child.

THREE JACK REACHER NOVELLAS: DEEP DOWN, SECOND SON, HIGH HEAT and JACK REACHER'S RULES (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published by Random House Audio in 2014
Read by Dick Hill
Duration: 7 hours, 9 minutes
Unabridged

The collection in Three Jack Reacher Novellas are all prequels to the current Reacher timeline. Two are set in Reacher's childhood and one is set during his service as an officer in the Military Police.

1) Deep Down is set during the 1980s. Reacher is asked to investigate a potential leak of military secrets to the Soviet Union via fax machine from the U.S. Capitol building. The potential leakers are a set of officers working in a committee to flash out the characteristics needed in a new sniper rifle should the Congress decide to fund the creation of a new sniper rifle and buy it. Reacher is added to the committee as part of an undercover operation to figure out who the bad guy is.

This is the strongest story in the collection. 5 stars.

Lee Child

2) In Second Son, Lee Child takes us all the way back to 1974. Jack Reacher is 13 years old and his father has just been transferred to Okinawa as a part of the U.S. Marines along with his mother and his slightly older brother Joe. 

Moving to a new place is always hard and Okinawa is no exception. Reacher must prove himself to the neighborhood bully, he meets a girl and he solves two mysteries. 

The story is fun, but 13 year old Reacher is way too smart for a middle school kid, even if he is Jack Reacher. But, the mysteries were fun. In fact, the whole story was fun, kind of like looking at old yearbook photos of someone you know from way back before you ever met them. 4 stars.

*********SPOILER ALERT************

3) In High Heat, 16-year-old Reacher is off to New York City in 1977 - all by himself. This is the most implausible of the three stories. Reacher gets involved in a blackout, breaks up a criminal ring, solves the Son of Sam murders and fools around with a college girl - All in one night!

Yeah, right! 2 stars.

**********END SPOILERS************

4) The Bonus track is Jack Reacher's Rules. I have seen this book in print and opted not to read it because it is a list of advice and comments lifted from various Reacher books and novellas. In context of the stories they came from, these lines and thoughts are interesting but they are really hard to listen to on their own. I listened for about 10 minutes and gave up on this part - I couldn't stand to listen to more than an hour more of it. 1 star.


I am a big fan of the reader, Dick Hill. I think he is an exceptionally good fit for this series. I don't even bother to physically read the books now - not if Dick Hill is reading them to me.

So, in the end this is 4 different stories of varying quality. The average score of this collection is 3 stars out of 5. 

This collection can be found on Amazon.com here: THREE JACK REACHER NOVELLAS: DEEP DOWN, SECOND SON, HIGH HEAT and JACK REACHER'S RULES.

PERSONAL (Jack Reacher #19) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published by Random House Audio in 2014
Read by Dick Hill
Duration: 12 hours, 55 minutes
Unabridged

In Personal Jack Reacher gets brought back into military duty, but not officially this time. An extremely talented sniper has taken a shot at the President of France. The shot was taken from an extreme distance and was only stopped by a revolutionary bullet proof glass screen. The various intelligence agencies are sure that this was just a dry run for the G8 economic conference that is coming up soon in England in which several world leaders will be present.

There are four snipers capable of such a shot and 16 years ago Reacher put one of them in jail for murder when he was in the military police. A former boss of Reacher thinks that he has some sort of insight and he partners up with a young CIA / State Department operative and they are off to France. She is the brains, and he is the brawn, at least that's the way it is supposed to be.

But, once they start digging, Reacher starts to suspect that there is much more to this case than he has been told...

This was a middle-of-the-road story. The narration by Dick Hill was excellent, but the book had long bits of repetitive talking that just got tiresome, especially with Bennett, the British Intelligence agent. On top of that, the big bad guy made it feel like it was a video game like Double Dragon - the hero works his way up to the giant boss character. But, the plot twist in the end was just too much. This book should have been edited down to make it much better.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Personal by Lee Child.

THE HARD WAY (Jack Reacher #10) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published by Brilliance Audio in 2008.
Read by Dick Hill
Duration: 12 hours, 2 minutes
Unabridged

Jack Reacher is just hanging out in a New York City coffee shop, drinking coffee and staring out the window when he gets caught up in a kidnapping case in The Hard Way. Turns out he witnessed the money hand off without even realizing what he was seeing. The ransom payer tracked Reacher down, picked him up and brought him to his exclusive penthouse apartment/office. Turns out his wife and stepdaughter have been kidnapped and he has decided to leave the police out of it and just pay the ransom.

The millionaire runs a quasi-legal mercenary operation and has decided to use his best men to search out the kidnappers and eliminate them...and he wants Reacher to help due to his previous police experience and offers him a hefty cash bounty if he produces. But, as Reacher starts to dig into why someone would want to kidnap his new employer's wife and stepdaughter he starts to find a lot more nagging questions than answers...

This was an especially interesting Reacher book for me. Lots of action, about 3 surprise twists and a number of interesting locales. Dick Hill's narration is just about perfect. He totally captures Reacher's attitudes. 

I rate this audibook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Hard Way by Lee Child.

ECHO BURNING (Jack Reacher #5) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Originally published in book form in 2001.
Unabridged audio edition published in 2008 by Brilliance Audio.
Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 14 hours, 21 minutes.

In Echo Burning, Jack Reacher starts out the story as a wanted man in Texas after he defends himself in a bar fight with a bully who turned out to be a police officer. He flees his hotel right before the police arrive and hitches a ride in record time. Even better - the driver is an extremely attractive woman who is heading far out of town towards the desert border with Mexico in Echo County, Texas.

But, as Reacher and the driver talk it turns out that Reacher's good luck in hitching a ride was helped because the driver is looking for someone to deal with her rich, abusive husband who is being released from prison soon and Reacher looks like the tough sort of man who can deal with him. She lists all of the reasons why she can't involve the police, lawyers or simply flee.

As she explains her situation, and after he meets her young daughter, Reacher reluctantly agrees to come along with them to see if there is something that he can do.

But, soon enough, he finds that things are way more complicated than he was led to believe and he's not sure who he is telling the truth...

This was an excellent Jack Reacher book - one of the best that I have read. The story was complicated, the action was very good and not too over-the-top. There are a lot of complicated plot lines going throughout the book and Lee Child does a good job of bringing them all together.

Dick Hill is excellent with his narration of the Jack Reacher series. He perfectly captures Reacher's sarcastic comments and observations. He is a pro and it shows.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Echo Burning by Lee Child.

A WANTED MAN (Jack Reacher #17) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published by Random House Audio in 2012
Read by Dick Hill
Duration: 14 hours, 11 minutes
Unabridged

In A Wanted Man, Jack Reacher is stuck in Nebraska. He is hitchhiking his way across the country to Virginia to physically meet the woman he met over the phone in 61 Hours. He has having a hard time getting a ride, though, because his nose is broken and it is taped over with a shiny piece of silver duct tape and it makes his already-menacing look even more menacing. He finally gets picked up by two men and a woman in a sedan and they are off to Chicago on the lonely interstate in the middle of the night.

But, things don't seem right to Reacher. The woman is uncomfortable, he has caught the most talkative man in two obvious lies and they get stopped by two different roadblocks. Something is up.

Meanwhile, the action flashes back to a old small town Sheriff and a young female FBI agent who are trying to coordinate a search for two men who are suspected of killing a person with ties to the State Department and a missing cocktail waitress. So far, the suspects have slipped through two different sets of roadblocks...

I was torn by this book. The opening drama of Reacher being trapped in the car with the bad guys was actually quite interesting. The interplay between the FBI agent and the sheriff was excellent. But, the way Reacher figures it out the exact situation (or, at least close enough for the early part of the book) is stunningly unbelievable. The locale of the climactic scene, when it come to pass (no spoiler, I promise) is a play off of the situation in another book that it makes me wonder if Lee Child had come up with two possibilities for the other book and decided to recycle his previously discarded choice in this book.

On the other hand, Reacher's funny comments are plentiful and spot-on. 

Dick Hill does a great job reading Jack Reacher. He gets the pacing of Lee Child's writing style and does a great job with accents and even gives Reacher a stuffed up nose sound the entire book because of his broken nose.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5 for too many giant leaps of logic for Reacher and the "recycled" location from an earlier book.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: A Wanted Man by Lee Child.

WITHOUT FAIL (Jack Reacher #6) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Originally released in 2007 by Brilliance Audio.
Read by Dick Hill
Duration: 16 hours, 34 minutes
Unabridged

Jack Reacher is back in Without Fail. He is tracked down by his deceased brother's former colleague in the Secret Service (and ex-girlfriend) because she wants him to take a run at the security around the Vice President-elect in order to test it.

It turns out there is a serious plot to kill the Vice President-elect and Reacher and a partner he has brought in to help join in to hunt for the plotters.

This is a typical Reacher book - lots of snide comments, fistfights and even gunplay. The part where he is brought in by the Secret Service is a stretch, but Lee Child makes it palatable.

The audiobook is read by veteran reader Dick Hill. He gives Reacher a strong voice and I think he really gets the character.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Without Fail by Lee Child.

NEVER GO BACK (Jack Reacher #18) by Lee Child

Published in 2013 by Random House Audio.
Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 13 hours, 43 minutes.
Unabridged.

Admittedly, I bounce around as a I read the Jack Reacher (so far I have read #8, #11, #14 and #18) but I was very pleased to note that #14 and #18 are tied together so that I had sort of a seamless experience while still skipping around.

In #14 Jack Reacher meets, via telephone, Susan Turner. Susan Turner has Reacher's old job in the military police and they make a connection. In Never Go Back, Reacher decides to hitchhike across the country to meet her only to find out that she has been arrested and he is not allowed to see her. To top it off, he has been recalled into the army so they can file charges against him - a person he investigated for selling stolen military weaponry in Los Angeles more than 15 years before has passed away from injuries that he claims Reacher inflicted during an interrogation.

Of course, Reacher won't stand for this kind of silliness and he starts his own investigation. Of course, he needs help and Susan Turner is just sitting there in the lockup...

This was a great "buddy" book. Lots of action, a lot of fun comments and it was well read by Dick Hill who perfectly catches the sardonic commentary placed in the narrative by Lee Child. This was an enjoyable whirlwind of a book.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Never Go Back (Jack Reacher #18).

61 HOURS (Jack Reacher #14) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published by Random House Audio in April of 2011.
Read by Dick Hill
Duration: 13 Hours, 43 Minutes
Unabridged

Jack Reacher is on a tour bus in 61 Hours with a lot of retired folks who took advantage of a discounted tour price to tour South Dakota in the winter time. Reacher paid the driver to hop on the bus, ride along, and skip the tour. They are on their way to Mount Rushmore when the bus skids on an icy patch on the interstate and gets hung up. Normally, that is not such a big deal, but a massive series of snowstorms is coming in and the temperature is dropping in a hurry.

Photo by DWD

The tourists, the driver and Reacher are evacuated to a small town with a big problem. A little old lady witnessed a local biker gang member selling meth to a big-time dealer and the trial is quickly approaching. But, the old lady has been threatened and the local police are expecting an outside hit-man to come to town and kill her so she can't testify and they suspect Reacher just may be that man.

Meanwhile, the snow is piling up, the temperature is dropping, the biker gang is acting stranger and stranger, an abandoned military site is suddenly the center of activity and the real hit-man is on the prowl...

There is a lot of action and lot of bone-shaking cold in this Reacher adventure. Ultimately it is a whodunnit and Lee Child does a great job of dropping clues that lead the reader to suspect all sorts of people. In the end, my first suspect was the real culprit, but I did doubt my suspicions from time to time.

Dick Hill is one of my all-time favorite audiobook readers and he does a solid job here. His tone adds to the ominous nature quite well.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: 61 Hours (Jack Reacher #14).

Angels Flight (Harry Bosch #6) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Race is THE issue in this great mystery

Published by Hachette Audio
Read by Dick Hill*
Duration: 10 hours, 55 minutes.
Unabridged

Angels Flight, an early installment in the Harry Bosch series, is as good as the rest in the series meaning, at least in my mind, it is a proud member of one of the best set of detective novels currently being produced.

Michael Connelly's books are usually deep and gritty and this one is no different. The lead character is Harry Bosch, the leader of a 3 detective team in the LAPD that is assigned an unusually sensitive case. A well-known civil rights attorney that has successfully sued LAPD over and over again for violations of federal civil rights laws has been murdered on the eve of an especially notorious case against the LAPD. Of course, everyone inside LAPD and out believe that a police officer killed him in a fit of revenge and the city is seething.

Set just a few years after the Rodney King riots and the O.J. Simpson murder trial, Los Angeles is racially tense, to say the least. This works well with one of the main themes of the entire series - Harry Bosch's name. Harry's real name is Hieronymus Bosch. If you are not familiar with Hieronymus Bosch let me explain. The real Hieronymus Bosch is a Renaissance painter that painted detailed and fanciful paintings of the torments of hell, including demons, strange creatures and their victims. Connelly often presents Harry Bosch as a man walking among the sites and smells of hell - torture, betrayal, riots and the literal burning of parts of the city in protest are the backdrop of this moody, brooding book.

Michael Connelly

Connelly deftly handles the tricky topic of racial discrimination and issues of black and white in this book. While the case is being worked race tints every aspect of the case - Black vs. White vs. Blue (LAPD) is a frequent topic that is discussed - not overtly but neatly inserted as conversations that flow quite naturally in the context of the story.

I heard this book as an audiobook and it was truly a joy to hear Dick Hill's narration*. He's done several of Connelly's novels and I've never been disappointed with any that he's narrated. He is as good as it gets.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Angels Flight by Michael Connelly.

Reviewed on December 19, 2008.

*Note: This audiobook has been re-recorded. The version with Dick Hill as the narrator can be tricky to find. 

The Black Ice (Harry Bosch #2) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Not the best Bosch book, which means that it is merely very, very good and not excellent

Originally published in 1993.
Audiobook originally published in 1998 by Brilliance Audio.

Read by Dick Hill.
11 hours, 11 minutes.

Unabridged.

Connelly's Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch is named after a Renaissance painter who specialized in fanciful and gruesome visions of hell from high above and detailed looks at the tortures that it holds for its residents. Hieronymus Bosch is designed to be our guide through the modern hell of Los Angeles - at least that's the way it seems to the Hollywood Homicide Division.

Fittingly, The Black Ice starts with Harry Bosch watching a wildfire burn part of the canyon below his home. His thoughts are interrupted with a radio call about a homicide and Bosch descends the mountain into the madness. A long, complicated case unrolls for Bosch as he goes against direct orders and privately investigates the presumed suicide of a narcotics and I will go no further so as to avoid spoilers.

Michael Connelly

Dick Hill read this installation of the Bosch series with a great deal of skill. It was a joy to listen and was the best thing about my commute for more than a week.

While not the best of the series that does not mean it is not an excellent book. I consider this to be one of the best series going right now and am happily working my way through them.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Black Ice.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on January 15, 2009.

Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, But Some Actual Journalism (audiobook) by Dave Barry. Read by Dick Hill.

Very, very, very good.

Published by Brilliance Audio in 2003.
Duration: 5 hours, 55 minutes.
Read by Dick Hill

Unabridged.

Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, But Some Actual Journalism is a collection of Dave Barry's columns from the summer of 2000 through September of 2002. They are read expertly by veteran narrator Dick Hill. I usually hear Hill reading crime novels and the like but I was pleased to hear that he has expert comic timing and turns out to be a perfect narrator for Barry's offbeat sense of humor.

Veteran reader Dick Hill

Topics include:

*The 2000 Democrat and Republican political conventions;

*The 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games;

*The Census;

*Camping in a Wal-Mart parking lot;

*and the silly tips in Cosmo magazine on how women can drive men wild.

Dave ends with two long essays about 9/11. One was published on 9/12 and does a great job of summing up the raw feelings and shock of the time. The second essay is much longer - by far the longest of the book. It was published on the one year anniversary of 9/11. It is simply brilliant. It incorporates the Gettysburg Address, an interview with the coroner in charge of the Shanksville plane crash scene and details Barry noted during a visit to both Gettysburg and Shanksville.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Boogers Are My Beat.

Reviewed on September 12, 2010.

The Black Echo (Harry Bosch #1) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

12 discs
14 hours
read by Dick Hill*

Edgar Award winner - 1993.

First, let me say that Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch stories are the best series currently being published. I've read and heard books throughout the series and let me heartily recommend hearing the Harry Bosch books rather than reading them.

Why?

First of all, narrator Dick Hill has an amazing voice and he captures Harry Bosch perfectly. There is no one better.

Secondly, Connelly's books really are well-written. I listen to a lot of audiobooks while I commute. Most are fine, but you can always tell the so-so authors. Their prose does not do well when read aloud while Connelly's shines. Combine it with Hill's voice and you have an experience, not just a book. (I'm not kidding, try it - I get two weeks of enjoyment by listening on the way to and from work rather than just two days in the traditional book format).

So, is The Black Echo a good book?

Not just good, it's great.

Michael Connelly

The plot concerns a dead body found in a drainage pipe. It could be just any junkie that crawled in to use drugs and then overdosed but Bosch thinks it looks wrong. Turns out he served in the Vietnam War with the overdose victim and when he starts pulling on loose threads he discovers a much larger conspiracy.

The plot is full of twists, turns, upsetting moments and even a few moments of laugh out loud fun. Connelly's strength is making Heironymous (Harry) Bosch as detailed and developed as possible while making the story move along. Gritty, bleak, despairing and all too human, this version of the L.A. streets and this detective are the best thing going in the world of fiction right now, in my opinion.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Black Echo (Harry Bosch Series)

Reviewed on October 9, 2009.

*Note: the version of this book read by Dick Hill is not available as an audio download - he can only be found on older CDs. Titus Welliver has re-read many, if not all, of the audiobooks of the Harry Bosch series since he plays Harry Bosch in the streaming series. I like Welliver's readings, but Dick Hill's style is not matched by anyone.