Book Details

Title: Running Blind

Author: Lee Child

# of pages: 512

Link to Buy: Amazon.in

Author Profile

Lee Child was born October 29th, 1954 in Coventry, England, but spent his formative years in the nearby city of Birmingham. By coincidence he won a scholarship to the same high school that JRR Tolkien had attended. He went to law school in Sheffield, England, and after part-time work in the theater he joined Granada Television in Manchester for what turned out to be an eighteen-year career as a presentation director during British TV’s “golden age.” During his tenure his company made Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker. But he was fired in 1995 at the age of 40 as a result of corporate restructuring. Always a voracious reader, he decided to see an opportunity where others might have seen a crisis and bought six dollars’ worth of paper and pencils and sat down to write a book, Killing Floor, the first in the Jack Reacher series.

Synopsis

Jack Reacher searches for an elusive killer responsible for the deaths of a number of women, who have nothing in common but the fact that they once worked for the military and had known Jack, and races against time to find a murderer who leaves no trace evidence at the scene of the crime.

Non Review Rant

I have read Personal in English and Urdu Translation of Echo Burning, both of which I enjoyed. So, I thought of reading this after One Of Us Is Lying. I am into thriller and mysteries these days.

Excerpts / Quotes / Highlights

‘People say that knowledge is power. The more knowledge, the more power. Suppose you knew the winning numbers for the lottery? You would run to the store. And you would win. Same for the stock market. You’re not talking about a trend or a percentage game or a whisper or a tip. You’re talking about knowledge. Real, hard knowledge. You would buy. Then later you’d sell, and you’d be rich. Any kind of sports at all, if you could predict the future, you’d be home and dry. Same for anything. Same for killing people.’

‘Every state puts a lot of effort into the first mile of its highways, to make you feel you’re entering a better place from a worse one.’

Review

Alright! I have finished reading the book. It took me awfully long to finish. I had some house guests and therefore did not get enough time to read.

There are two murders and there seems to be a pattern, a few things common among the victims, Jack Reacher being one of the commonalities. The third one is killed after Jack is brought on board.

We are also given a murderer POV in between, and we know what’s going on in his / her head.

As a reader, I had suspected a few things, drawing my own bits of conclusions.

• I have read Personal, where one man who were running the investigation was involved. It is somebody from the FBI; because FBI was running the investigation
• It is a woman, not a man. Everybody is just assuming a man is behind those murders. So, it makes sense to assume it can be a woman.
• The murderer’s POV tells us that the victims are controlled. They do not object to anything that is asked of them. It has to be hypnotism. So it is someone who knows hypnotism to control the victims.
• Julia knows hypotism. She works for FBI and has control to send the investigation in wrong direction. She is a woman.

I was right on all three accounts. I was still enjoying how every little detail was unfolded. The other part which kept me engaged was the curioisty to discover how the victims were killed. It was quite shocking.

I like Jack Reacher.

The writing is simple and sometimes too descriptive. I had to skip through some very descriptive, unrelated to plot paragraphs. I would have enjoyed it better if it was shorter.

***

Verdict:

Cover: 4 / 5
Plot: 4.5 / 5
Writing:  4 / 5

Overall rating: 4/5

Shabana Mukhtar

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