I just finished reading Lee Child’s “Nothing to Lose.” It is one of his Jack Reacher novels. I had never heard of Lee Child or the Jack Reacher series before I read this book. I’m hooked.

This book is from a genre I have never heard of before: “Revenge Fantasy.” Jack Reacher, the narrator and protagonist of the book, is a former MP who is now one hard dude. He walks everywhere he goes with nothing but the clothers on his back and an ATM card in his pocket. He doesn’t take any crap from anybody. Some of my favorite dialog:

In a diner, in Despair, Colorado, where four toughs are trying to get him to leave,

Tough: “You need to get going”

Reacher: “Going?”

“Out of here.”

“Out of where?”

“Out of this restaurant.”

“You want to tell me why?”

“We don’t like strangers.”

“Me either,” Reacher said. “But I need to eat somewhere. Otherwise, I get all wasted and skinny like you four.”

The book is full of dialog like that. I loved it. What nerd wouldn’t? Who needs a story with dialog like that.

Yes there is a story. Jack Reacher is walking from Maine to San Diego and he walks through Hope, Colorado on his way to Despair. He runs into trouble in the diner and gets arrested for vagrancy and then driven to the edge of Despair back to Hope.

He meets a policewoman, Vaughn, a woman with a secret, who is sympathetic to him. Eventually she consumates her sympathy with him. Later, Reacher finds out her secret. They also work together through a bunch of adventures to find out why the people of Despair including the fundamentalist, industrialist, mayor, are so hostile to outsiders.

What kept me going through this book is Reachers reparte with the various bad guys he comes up against. The story was ok but not very compelling. The problem with books with a mystery is that most of the time I am disapointed with the secret of the mystery. It is kind of like monster books. The buildup is the best part. The revealed monster is alwasy disappointing.

I give this book 2.5 stars out of 4. I’ll read more books by Lee Child.