DWD's Reviews

Published by Penguin Audio Originally published in 1998. Read by Jonathan McClain Duration: 14 hours, 47 minutes Unabridged Jack Reacher helps out a lady in need with her dry cleaning and ends up being kidnapped, thrown in the back of a van with her and driven across the country as part of an over-the-top plan. Reacher tries to figure out a way to escape while simultaneously trying to figure out why the kidnappers them in the first place. Of course, once he starts to figure out things, he discovers that their near hopeless situation is actually worse than he thought... Lee Child This is a great Reacher novel. I am listening to them all out of order, which isn't much of a problem since Lee Child isn't really writing them in any particular order. Lots of action, plenty of plot lines and Reacher himself make this entry worth reading. This is the first Reacher novel I have listened to that was read by Jonathan McClain. Most of them I have heard were read by Dick Hil

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. 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 qu

Published in 2015 by Random House Audio. Narrated by Dick Hill Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes Unabridged Lee Child. Photo by Mark Coggins Jack Reacher is back in his Military Police days in this short story. He has been moved to a new base in Georgia and immediately has a murder to investigate - a new female intelligence officer who is beautiful, rich and is on the fast track to the top is found dead beside her Porsche on a country road near the base. Jack Reacher starts to dig and quickly puts all of the pieces together in a satisfying, but too-short story. All of the stuff you love about a Reacher novel are here:  smart comments, a little bit of fighting, quick thinking and an ending that makes you think about the difference between what is legal and what is just. Dick Hill's narration is spot-on, like always. I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. This audiobook short story can be found on Amazon.com here: Small Wars 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. 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

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

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

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

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 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 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 s

Originally published in 2004. Some authors are fastidious about their books being written in the order that events happen to the character. So, the events in book 5 will follow the events in books 3 and 4 and precede the events in books 6 and 7. Lee Child does not feel the need to do that in his Reacher series. While this book is number 8 in the order of publication, it is the first chronologically which makes it a great place to start the series. Reacher is in the Military Police and has just been re-assigned from the invasion of Panama to remove General Manuel Noriega in December of 1989 to Fort Bird in North Carolina. It is New Year's Eve and just at the stroke of midnight Reacher gets a call. A General is dead in a seedy hotel off base. It turns out he died from heart attack while he was just starting an intimate moment with a mystery partner. Reacher is not too worried about things until he notes that the General's briefcase is missing. So, Reacher starts digg

Published by Dell in 2012. Originally published in in 2007 by Delacorte Press I must live under a rock. I had not read any Jack Reacher novel until I read this one and I had not even heard of the series until last summer when a fellow blogger was excitedly talking about the latest release. So, what did I think? First of all, you do not have to have read any of the rest of the series to follow what is happening in this story. Jack Reacher is a drifter and he has been since he retired from the U.S. Army in 1997. In the military he led an investigation squad of the military police. Like Clint Eastwood's famed " Man WIth No Name " character from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Reacher says little, keeps his own counsel and does what he thinks is best, follow his own sense of justice and drifts from place to place. Lee Child In Bad Luck and Trouble , Reacher receives a message from a former member of his unit. He tracks her down and discovers that another fo