Discussion: Killing Floor by Lee Child (spoilers)
 

Seem like many are enjoying this book... Why is it so great. What about it do you like?

BOb

I really enjoyed to book...

One thing that puzzled me was, when Jack tackled the 5 people in/near the house and when there were 2 people left, he took one outside by putting his fingers in the man's eyes... Why didn't that man scream?

This is the only thing I really remember that I was confused about.. I read the book as soon as I knew it was going to win.

I'm sure as comments come in, I'll remember more..

I was lucky to get it on WHSmith before they closed all sales for non-UK residents.

I missed the boat on this one.....trying to catch up, this is actually a really good book, and I will be reading more of them, but I'm only 75 pages in at the moment so I'll check back in a couple days....hope to have it done by then.

I really enjoyed the book, but I found that the discovery that it was his brother who was killed in the town he just happened to drift into was a bit of a stretch.

"I really enjoyed the book, but I found that the discovery that it was his brother who was killed in the town he just happened to drift into was a bit of a stretch."

I agree that it caught me at first until i remembered that he had gone to check out the story of the death of an old blues guitar player that his brother told him about. That gave a week reason that his brother knew about the town

On that occasion, it was raining fit to beat the band .... and nothing could be heard above the rain. The occasion where he did the same action in the jail bathroom -- well, that guy DID scream.

I very much liked the basic "cheat" that the bad guys were doing. Bleaching out an item to make another item sounds so clever! Especially since the lead bad guy had previously run afoul of the law for his chemical plant runoff.

I also like the fact that (a) Jack's childhood of moving a lot had made him tough and (b) he then went into the military, where they taught him to be *serious* about it. It gave him some cool defense skills.

I had trouble, though, with his ease in finding the run-away person. Guessing that right seemed awfully far fetched. He should instead have had to go to a library, get all the local phone books, and phoned around to find the correct hotel, before driving there. (Since this was before the internet).

And come on --- a huge pile of loose money? Sure, it sounds cool, and it's necessary for it to be able to burn. But all the remote collections of money would have come in bags or something ... not just tossed loose into a truck! There should have been no need for shoveling it up. Sheesh.....

The violence was not too gruesome/graphic for the situation. So if excessive violence is not your thing, you may be ok here.

I do agree that the fact that it was Jack's brother killed was definitely a stretch. But given the connection of the blind blues singer and his brother, I was able to let that go and just get into it.

Actually the whole books is a *big* stretch. :eek:

But that doesn't prevent the book from being a page-turner. I thoroughly enjoyed it and his second book is already on my TBR pile.

Here's my review.




The action hero myth is alive and well, sort of...

Killing Floor is the first book in, former TV writer, Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. I'd heard good things about this series and picked up a trade paperback copy of Killing Floor a few years ago, but never seemed to get around to reading it.

Jack Reacher is your typical action hero. He's a big, strong ex-military guy who's smarter and tougher than pretty much anyone around and he gets the girl. He doesn't have a lot of depth (none of the characters do), but sometimes that's OK. It's got blood and guts and double digit body counts. Part Die Hard, part Rambo, part Sherlock Holmes (without the plausibility Holmes brings). At times Reacher has a caricature feel to him, but that's kind of the point in a way.

The book begins with our hero, the only out of towner in sight, having breakfast at the local diner. He sees Police cruisers pull up fast and cops loaded for bear jump out. He knows they're there for him, if they'd been there a local things would have been much more low key. The cops tell him "You are under arrest for murder", and so begins our story.

What follows is a twisting, turning, adventure with murder and mayhem aplenty. Even though Reacher, a victim of military downsizing who's been drifting around the country since his discharge, wasn't even in the state at the time he's suspect number one in the brutal murder of a John Doe. Add to that the authorities have the most solid of witnesses, the Chief of Police. After his alibi pans out Reacher is released, but not before some gruesome action in the local prison, and free to go. However it turns out that the John Doe just happens to be Reacher's brother Joe, a top treasury investigator. Strangely enough no one from Treasury comes to investigate a murder of one of their own so it's up to Reacher, a former MP, and his sidekicks a straight shooting local detective and a hottie lady cop, who quickly takes Reacher into her bed. As the investigation continues Reacher and company unearth a conspiracy which encompasses not only the small town of Margrave, Georgia but stretches around the US and all the way to Venezuela. There are blood and bullets aplenty as our hero works to determine who's involved and bring them to justice, and not the legal kind of justice.

The action scenes were plenty and enjoyable. There are copious plot twists, unfortunately very few of them are at all believable. There are so many coincidences and that along with the main characters nearly clairvoyant ability to reach deductions, like tracking down a missing witness/conspirator, made it pretty hard to maintain a suspension of disbelief.

That being said, Killing Floor is a fairly fast paced ride that provides a decent action movie type diversion.
Overall I like it. C/C+

I had the same thought when reading that part of the book. Seems like the old dollar bills should have been bundled or bagged, not floating loose.

Maybe they didn't have time for bags?

Hmmm. They're getting the money from banks (hence the guy who previously worked at shuffling $$ between banks). Banks aren't gonna just toss the bills in the back of a truck! Even if they *were* intended for destruction, and I'm not sure they were. The scheme was to tap into the normal "shuffling" of physical cash.

I'll assume a wink at the end of your post, and I'll shut up now!

You know, I liked this one. Kind of filled the gap after the end of 24. I found the Jacks to be eerily similar. :)

Did anyone see Castle last night? Similar plot between Killing Floor and the new Castle episode.

I got kind of fixated on his use of the word "jinked." (5 times, according to a quick kindle search.) Since I had to look it up the first time he used it, I noticed it every other time and kept waiting for it. :)

I can honestly say I've never heard that word used before. I get it, I understand it, but it's just not common in anything I've read up to now.

I just got to the part about the brother....I can forgive it, the rest of the book is just too good, and I'm a sucker for action/adventure/suspense books.

I would give it 4½ stars out of 5. It was really enjoyable and well-written, but the coincidences did strain credulity.

I think in these types of novels for the most part, you have to have the coincidences....just seems like they are in every novel of this type.

I enjoyed it - it's not Great Lit, but you don't always want to read Great Lit.

I've read all the other Reacher books that you can get on the Kindle in the UK since, and although they vary a bit in quality, they're much the same kind of thing. Each is an easy-to-read romp with a "mystery" that's usually not so hard to guess half way through.

At around the price of a pint, I think that they're good value.

Does anyone know how to get "The Enemy", "One Shot" and/or "The Hard Way" in the UK?

Read it and enjoyed it. The coincidence of his brother was a bit of reach, maybe it was to make it more reasonable for Jack to care about what is going on and get involved?

I plan on reading the entire series. I read The Enemy before The Killing Floor, and I've started Die Trying. I'm hooked.:)

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars. Really enjoyed it. Some of the complaints here did bother me a bit, but not enough to pull me out of the book. I enjoyed it far more than the Marlowe book we read last month.

Sadly like another former favourite author's series, Patricia Cornwell, this series of books have become very robotic and flat.

The Killing Floor is about as good as it gets.

Exactly my thoughts, and for that I'd give it a 3 out of 5.

It kept me turning the pages. A fun lightweight read akin to watching a 'turn your brain off' action movie, and in thinking of the book like that I could easily excuse the coincidences and predictability.

I'd probably pick up a few more Reacher books in the future, ideal for a holiday read.

After (as discussed in another thread) adjusting to Child's sentence structure, I pretty much agree with the general consensus that it's a good, lightweight, page turning read even with the improbable coincidences and necessary 'stretches'. I also agree with Quake that it far more enjoyable than the Marlowe book. Three out of 5 stars.

Would pick-up another of the series if my tbr list wasn't..........:eek:
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Which other thread discusses the sentence structure? (ya got me curious now)

You have me curious as well, CharlieBird. Nothing about the sentence structure Child used struck me as particularly noteworthy as I was reading the book, and I'd like to see what I missed.

Showing my in-expertise (I don't know how to link to another thread), but it's Jon's "Jack Reacher series by Lee Child".

On page 2 of the current Read Recommendations Forum.
d

Ahhh. This one?

The short choppy sentences mentioned at the beginning of the above thread didn't bother me -- I think in those exact same ways. My text messages are much like that --- and so are my posts here, unless I remember to fill my sentences out more completely!

:thanks:

Okay, here are my random thoughts about Killing floor:

Looks like my taste in books is quite different from most posters' here: I found the book impossible to finish. Literally. I stopped after about 45% on my Kindle.

It started out really well: I liked the opening arrest scene at the diner, and the next few chapters were decent, too. It started to fall apart for me, when the local police (who initially was portrayed as being very well-trained and professional) suddenly started making rookie mistakes (Putting two suspects for the same crime into the same cell? Bad idea. Not searching the car of a murdered police officer, because it doesn't seem important? WTF?!) and was generally unable to do anything without Reacher's help. I'm not just talking about the corrupt guys, I'm talking about all of them: It takes our hero to come up with the idea of calling a phone number written on a piece of evidence, a well-trained cop hands the investigation over to him and, of course, the girl falls for him immediately, simply because he exists.

There are so many missed opportunities for sub-plots here: If Finlay were a fully developed character, he could resist Reacher's attempts to run the show, leading to interesting tension. If Roscoe were more than the token love interest, her sense of duty might conflict with her attraction to Reacher. None of this happens - they are only standing around taking orders from Reacher. (Or, in Roscoe's case, lying down to have sex with him.)

Up to the point where I stopped, Reacher had yet to make a serious mistake, the kind that would get him into mortal danger. Any danger always came from the outside, and Jack would always fight it off easily. To me, a flawless hero who doesn't make mistakes is just boring. For an example of a highly entertaining hero who makes mistakes aplenty and still saves the day, read Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series.

There you'll also find something else I was missing in this book: Humor and irony. No, dead brothers don't call for guffaws, but a little self-deprecating can go a long way. Besides: The seriousness didn't even translate into drama: Reacher's brother's death doesn't get more than a few clichéd phrases out of the guy.

However, by the time Reacher did learn the dead man happened to be his brother (from a fax which he - a civilian who had just walked into town and had been a murder suspect - just took out of the police fax machine with many officers around him watching) I didn't care anymore anyway. The whole plot had started to feel like nothing more than a string of events conveniently set up to showcase Jack Reacher's near perfection in fighting, investigating and lovemaking.

Apparently, many people are able to overlook all these flaws and enjoy the book as mindless fun, but for me they kill the story and the fun - they are (wait for it) "killing flaws". (badum-ching!)

Seriously, though, even for a freshman effort, I found this to be rather weak, and I was quite surprised to learn that it had actually won the "best first novel" Anthony Award. Among the other winners are Patricia Cornwall and Stieg Larsson both of whom IMHO delivered much better quality in their first books.

That's kind of how I felt about the latest Star Trek film (the one with the all new cast). There were so many holes in the plot and so many extremely unlikely coincidences that it became really troublesome, but in the end I suspended belief and didn't let it interfere with my enjoyment of the film. In the same way, many of those things you pointed out were bothersome, and the book would have been better without them, but I still enjoyed the ride. As someone else pointed out, Child never worked in law enforcement. Perhaps if he had that first-hand experience the story line would have been more believable; but it was still a heck of a lot of fun, IMO.

Wasn't a big fan of the new Trek film, either, but it was okay - mainly because at least it felt like a movie, whereas most of the previous films were more like drawn-out TV episodes.

I think it's not as much about accuracy as it is about consistency and believability. (Is that even a word?) I'd be willing to believe that for some reason (over-eager boss, recent inspection, whatever) the police in a small town would be really well-trained. I'd also believe the opposite, since it's more in line with the image of small-town police I'd expect. The trouble starts when the author wants me to believe both concepts at the same time without explaining or even acknowledging the contradiction.

And most of my problems weren't really about bad research but rather about lazy writing and plotting. I may be able to ignore that in TV and movies to a certain extent, but for some reason I can't do it in books. Probably because a book requires me to invest some energy and imagination, whereas TV only requires me to sit still and watch. (*) If I need to bring something to the plate myself, I expect more from the other side, as well.

(*): There are, of course, many really intelligent, well-written and though-provoking TV shows out there, as well. It's just that I find it easier to tolerate bad writing on TV than in a book.

I'm just about done with this, and I kind of have the opposite thing in mind. I do believe that this was really well written. I can believe that small town cops can be good and bad in their training because of certain circumstances, they are good at what they do, but not good when extra-ordinary circumstances take place.

But I read these like they are a long movie. I'm already gathering the next few books together to read.

The only time I haven't been able to really forgive something was in MEG

**END OF BOOK SPOILERS**

The end of the book featured the main character getting swallowed hole in a submersive by the megalodon....climbing out of the submersive, and cutting it's heart out from the inside.....really??? The rest of the book was top notch entertainment though.

After reading your comment, I decided to watch that Castle episode last night. I couldn't see any similarity with "Killing Floor" ... until the counterfeit bills showed up in the last 10 minutes of the show.

I finally finished this book and read the thread. I agree with what most said here.. it was a good read, a page turner... however some aspects of the plot were a bit contrived.

I know the rich like to get richer... but why would a guy that can amass 14million in cash bother with counterfeits. Unless he bought all the 1s with counterfeits.

Yes, the mounds of loose cash was just silly. Banks wrap ones in $100 bands and they are put in money bags. Or bigger quantities are put on pallets wrapped with shrink.

I rated this on 3.5 on LibraryThing.

BOb

My impression was that was exactly what they were doing.

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)

Sunday was the day the increased Coast Guard patrols would be stopped... so they could start shipping the ones out again. I assume they had dozens of trucks and boats scheduled to do the bulk, if not all of it that day.

Although I don't see how with cash piled loosely and a few guys. Did they ever hear of money bands, pallets and forklifts?


BOb

First time a book club thread's come up that I've actually read. It's been ages since I read this (paper version before ereaders!) but i've been reading the rest of the series over the last few years as they come out. (the epub prices for them seem very high!

There are two things I don't like about the JR books - one the police always seem happy to have his help, yeah we'll tell you all the details, you can give us a hand, no problem. And the other is the way all the women just jump into bed with him. It just seems really odd, they end up with no personalities, just more bed fodder for Jack.

But I like the action, I like the tension and the just about belivable plots Jack gets into. I like his deductive processes - he's not perfect and does make mistakes, but can you spot them?

Not all the JR books are sucesses though, some are better than others.

Women jump into bed with men all the time in movies, and police being helped seems to happen all the time too, so why not in books?

I guess I view it much differently. I expect to read these like I'm watching a movie, and for the most part, that's how it plays out LOL.

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.