Thread: MobileRead Discussion: Killing Floor by Lee Child (spoilers)
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Old 10-04-2010, 01:42 PM   #40
WT Sharpe
Bah, humbug!
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Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dmacmart View Post
I've just finished Killing Floor. It was a good read and I will definitely read more of the Jack Reacher series. He reminds me of Travis McGee, in his loner, drifting, indestructible, smarter-than-everyone-else way. All in a good way.

I would say that the coincidence of stumbling into this tiny town within 8 hours of his brother having been killed in it, and being accused of the murder, put a big damper on the story however. I kept hoping for an explanation - e.g. he'd very recently talked to his brother and the Blind Blake name came up because Margrave was in the brother's mind. But no. Pure coincidence. It seems to me it didn't have to be quite so random and still be the same story.

Smaller coincidence was the fact that the FBI agent that Finlay, the new "Chief of detectives" had known since childhood, was involved in the scheme. I could live with that one however, as he was the FBI agent assigned to the town. You have to have the unexpected bad guy in a story like this. I really thought it would be Roscoe, as she was local; plus knowing Reacher was a series character, already described as a loner and drifter, there had to be some reason he couldn't stay with Roscoe for 11 books.

I have a question. I must have missed something critical in the plot (well, critical in the Hitchcockian "MacGuffin" way) - what was going to explode on Sunday? As far as I could tell, the coast guard patrol was being relaxed and the warehouse could slowly be emptied, as it had gradually been filled over the past few months. What was the specific deadline that was going to be such a big deal that Hubble described in the jail? It didn't seem like it was going to be anything more than a slow leak as opposed to a dam break.

(and if you're doing gender calculations, F here)
Strange Luck, one of my favorite and short-lived TV series, was all about a hero, "Chance" Harper, who had the most bizarre luck ever; some good, some bad. Always strange and inexplicable coincidences seemed to follow him. (For a while there was talk about a Strange Luck/X-Files crossover. It never got past one episode where Chance Harper mentioned that the only FBI agent he trusted was a fellow named Fox Mulder.) I was hoping for at least some similar "explanation" of the weird coincidences that seem to follow Jack Reacher, but saw no hint of that.
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