The Enemy

I think I mentioned that I've been reading Lee Child's new one, The Enemy. I'd read all but about 90 pages before we left for Armadillocon, and I didn't bother taking the book with me to finish it while we were there. I'm not sure what that tells us. Probably this: That I didn't find the book so gripping that I was in a sweat to get to the end. Now that I've read it, here are a few random thoughts.

1. The book seems longer than the earlier Jack Reacher books. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I prefer shorter books. Not that the earlier books were short.

2. Child sure does know a lot about the U.S. military. The stuff about the Army, Army life, Army politics, Army this and Army that is almost overwhelming.

3. The book, like the first one Child published about Reacher, is in first person. Don't know why. Maybe because it's a "prequel," set before the third-person books. Some writers switch between first and third person in the same book. Child does it a bit differently.

4. The plot seems pretty complicated, but I'd figured out a lot of it by the time I stopped reading to go to the convention. Maybe that's why I wasn't in a hurry to finish.

5. This wasn't my favorite Jack Reacher book, but I'll probably read the next one.