Critical Mick

Die Trying! With a flash in his wide grinning eye, Lee Child comes bearing plenty of blood and boobies.

Thrillers are essentially children's stories for adults: they excite with sex and violence, but it's really just Hardy Boys and Speed Racer underneath. I loved the Hardy Boys as a kid! Now, I love boobies too.

There is a reason why Child has become such a bestseller over the past ten years. 

Potted plot: a cartoon version of the American Nazis from that movie Betrayed kidnap hot 20-something FBI agent Holly Johnson. Holly's daddy is top general of all America's armed forces. They chuck her in a truck and chain her to a wall in an old barn where her peachy designer outfit slowly pops off, button by button, revealing sexy underwear. Whoo hoo! Holly is held captive by a hundred bearded fanatics with machine guns and dynamite. Tanks, Marines, planes, choppers, and the head of the whole FBI try, but can't stop 'em! But the baddies have made one huge mistake.

When lifting Holly Johnson from that Chicago dry cleaners, they also grabbed 6'4 former Military Policeman JACK REACHER! Stupid punks thought he was just the bouncer at a hardcore Southside blues venue. Jack soon proves that he is a hero who can Jedi mindtrick the baddies out of killing him. Jack Reacher can also kill three armed men with just a cigarette, all the while handcuffed to a chair. And tell how old a victim was by glancing at the skeleton's teeth and pelvis by dying flashlight beam. He never needs to sleep or eat and never gets flustered. And of course, Jack Reacher can shoot all manner of guns, from miles away, and never ever miss. Flying from beginning to end, Die Trying delivers gun porn aplenty though without the statement or style of Douglas E. Winter's Run.

It's all very Danbrown: wholly ridiculous and wonderfully compelling fun. Where is the mysterious truck going? Can Holly's FBI partners piece the clues together before the kidnappers slip out of reach? Who's the traitor? What's Holly's secret? Will our heroes be able to warn the Air Force guys in time? Who's behind it all, and when that's revealed- how will Jack and Holly ever get out of this scrape? Most important: will our man get any action off her?

Yes he will. He's JACK REACHER. Plenty of blood and boobies guaranteed.

Critical Mick says: Like the TV series 24, Lee Child's engaging second novel is non-stop action with occasional memorable moments. It's utterly, unintentionally hilarious- and that's part of the fun. Like the work of Danbrown, Die Trying contains a bunch of big words and serious titles so it feels like you're reading something important, when in fact it's all just a laugh. All true blokes will love Child's books. And Spiderman, too.