Die Trying
Year: 1998
Author: Lee Child
Length: 859 minutes / 14.32 hours
After reading the first Jack Reacher book, The Killing Floor, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the overly macho, masculine wish fulfillment presented in that book. Despite this, I gave the second book in the series, Die Trying, a shot. I was much more impressed with this book as it seemed to contain an actual plot and plenty of intrigue. Of course, it still had the random male wish fulfillment bits in it, but I’ll take any improvements I can get. I definitely see why the series has continued for so long after this outing.
The appeal of Jack Reacher as a character is his complete competence based on the specific skills he obtained while serving in the military. And while a case of mistaken identity kicked The Killing Floor off, Die Trying leaned into the “wrong place and wrong time” trope to get Reacher tied into the main series of events. That there was a side-narrative with other competent people trying to solve the issue helped to ground the story by including an outside perspective that wasn’t directly tied to what Reacher was doing.
While the plot is eerily relevant even today, the one thing I just can’t get past in this book is how the female characters throw themselves at Reacher. At no point in any of the kidnapping or hostage situations did it feel warranted that there would be any physical intimacy between these characters. This was the main logic break in an otherwise sensible story that I couldn’t get past. There’s no way anybody is having sex while actively being kidnapped by terrorists. Scenes like this were completely unnecessary and just play into the male power fantasy that I’m sure continues to permeate this series.
A more engaging plot for Jack Reacher but still retaining some questionable scenes, I give Die Trying 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
