I recently finished reading ‘Bad Luck and Trouble’ by Lee Child, yet again an author I hadn’t heard of before and was only tempted to read it by reading the blurb on the back. And, just like ‘The Double Tap‘, it’s much more compelling than the actual book.
The protagonist whose name I’ve since forgotten [can you tell this book was memorable?] is the former member of a military special team originally called the Special Forces. Their team members have the cute saying “You don’t mess with the Special Forces” which is repeated a lot during the book. And I mean A LOT!
This isn’t the only book with the main character, the internet tells me that Lee Child based an entire best selling series around him.
The plot is surprisingly good, main guy is yet another burned out ex military member who has become a loner and a nomad travel ling from town to town staying wherever he wants to be. Which to be fair isn’t all that bad. He’s also obsessed with numbers and over the course of the book has to decipher clues which strangely enough all have to do with numbers. Funny that..
Some members of his former team have disappeared which has sparked the interest of another of them who contacts him and they meet. Cue an endless amount of clues, driving around, somewhat predictable plot twists, unrealistic events and, of course, a lot of preparation.
The interesting thing about this book is that Jack Reacher [I finally remembered his name!] has a skewed sense of justice. He has no problem attacking or shooting drug dealers or the like if he needs money or guns. Sure, it could be argued that they don’t deserve better, but it’s still wrong to me and one of the reasons I couldn’t warm to his character.
It’s a better book than ‘The Double Tap’, but still not all that great.
