Exit Strategy: A Reacher Novel (Jack Reacher)

I enjoyed the pace of the book. As usual, the story flowed well and maintained my interest. I am looking forward to the next of the bookRes.

I am such a Reacher fan that despite having almost 300 unread titles in my Kindle library, and despite the somewhat mediocre reviews that book received on Amazon and GoodReads, I bought it with hardly a second’s thought. I am here to tell you the mixed review is actually quite fair. The premise lured me in immediately: Reacher finds a note in his pocket left by a stranger who had brushed against him. The note in turn led to Reacher on a quest to right some wrongs. It also led to some very exciting, well-choreographed fight scenes where Reacher is outnumbered by this opponents and — no spoiler here — comes out on top, There is some good dry Reacher humor and some interesting characters. Then about 65% of the way through, the narrative hit the same wall that I noticed in the last Reacher book I read. The scheme that Reacher and his associates come up against is very complex and must be unraveled in a series of long wordy scenes. Each move ahead is based on clever deductions by Reacher and occasionally one of his henchmen. The choices are not necessarily clear to the reader but luckily, each move leads to further action in the right direction. The action remained bogged down til the last few violent scenes which redeem the book as a whole. My ultimate review is favorable but I wish Andrew Child could figure out a way to advance the story through more action and less exposition.

Time for me to go. That’s for damn sure. This book was rambling and confusing. I never did figure out who some of the characters were. First of all-No one would go to a deserted warehouse at midnight just because a stranger slipped a note in his pocket. Never figured who the woman in the container was and why she was there. Never figured who the woman in the black coat was. Jack Reacher seemed to just be there and not really pivotal in the plot. And Gilmore-Seemed to be more the main character then Reacher A big part of the book was just filler. . I have read all 30 in the series and this will probably be the last. An author cannot just hand off a series at 30 books to another person no matter if it is to his brother. All authors need to just let it go at some point. But to end on a positive note-I really enjoyed Jack Reacher for quite some time

Never ever enough Reacher!! Books come out too too slow!!!! Lee Cold is a wonder!! Thank you!! I'm definitely waiting on book 31!!!!

I’ve been an ardent Reacher fan for years and have read all of the books in the series. Normally I can’t put them down. This one took focus to stick with. While Reacher is the main character, if this were your first experience with the series, I don’t think you’d understand much about him. It feels like they wrote out the outline of a story and just filled it in, without the normal interest and intrigue of the earlier books. The characters are forgettable, Reacher seems robotic, and many parts of the story seem contrived and highly implausible. I don’t know, it just didn’t draw me in the way Reacher books normally do, even the more recent ones where Andrew Child is collaborating with Lee Child. This is the first one that makes me think the series is jumping the shark.

Am big Fan of REACHER. His Son (Andrew is collaborating) with him. Thay are very good together,

I’ve followed the Jack Reacher series for years and it's been one of my most reliable "go to" reads. I am sorely disappointed that Exit Strategy is such a letdown. Lee Child’s books are usually fast-paced, action-packed books following the lead character, but this one is just too complicated. There are always new characters, each linked to different groups, and the story keeps stopping to explain who they are and how they fit in. Instead of adding suspense, these explanations make it confusing and hard to follow. What is actually a fairly simple plot is unnecessarily overcomplicated. There are way too many characters. Many of the scenes withhold information and reveal it later, but this happens so often that the reveals just clear up earlier confusion rather than feeling like twists. The story keeps pausing to catch up, rather than moving forward. Reacher doesn’t feel as strong as before. He’s there, but almost as an added character. In earlier books, his instincts and quick decisions drove the story. Now, he sometimes seems like he’s just being moved around instead of making things happen. The pacing never really gets better. Most of the book drags from all the setup, and then the ending comes too quickly, making it more rushed than satisfying.

In 2020, after writing 24 successive best-selling novels featuring Jack Reacher, author Lee Child (James Grant) reached the completely understandable point where he decided to begin stepping away from the routine of issuing a new Reacher novel every year, and he began to collaborate with his younger brother Andrew (Andrew Grant using the pen name Andrew Child) to continue the Reacher series. Since that time, 6 Reacher novels have been issued, with both Lee Child and Andrew Child listed as co-authors, with a 7th to be released later this year. This novel, Exit Strategy, is the sixth. I've been a great fan of the Reacher novels since the beginning, and at first these collaborations did carry forward the Reacher theme reasonably well. However I feel they are now at the point where the momentum has been lost, the energy and excitement of a good Reacher story is no longer present, and with reluctance I am no longer going to be eagerly awaiting the next Reacher novel. If you have enjoyed the Reacher stories, with the mix of suspense, violence, occasional romance, and real drama, then you will be disappointed with Exit Strategy. It has very little of any of these story elements, and I found myself wondering as I read the story if Lee Child had finally completely passed the baton to his brother, with the result that this is no longer a real collaboration that reflects the skill he always brought to the Reacher stories, and the name Lee Child on the cover is now simply a marketing tool to retain the connection to the Reacher series that is needed for these novels to continue to benefit from that heritage. No criticism to Lee Child as he is no doubt enjoying a well deserved retirement. Unfortunately his younger brother is simply not able to maintain the same standard, and the Reacher of old is only going to be found in the earlier novels which will continue to be enjoyable to re-visit from time to time.

Love these books but I don’t think they are quite as good as when he was writing on his own but worth a read.

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Too much verbose and too complex to follow through. Lost patience half way through.

Another great lee child book!

Great book as usual for the fun’s of Lee Child