Book Review – Bad Luck and Trouble

I definitely should have started with earlier Jack Reacher novels when I started following Lee Child’s fascinating main character. In Bad Luck and Trouble, as in The Enemy, which I reviewed a few weeks ago, Reacher once again seems almost human. And just like in that book, it’s because he is in contact with people he cares about and has a history with.

Bad Luck and Trouble sees Reacher reuniting with three former members of an elite military investigations team he led before he left the service. But if you’ve read any Reacher novels, you know he doesn’t hold reunions just for the sake of it, and the reason for this one is unpleasant. Four other former members of that team have disappeared from their new civilian lives, one known for certain to be dead, and the other three probably dead as well. The fact that even one could be taken out by someone, not to mention four at once, is stunning to the surviving team members. Reacher may be the most physically intimidating and hard to take down, but a decade ago, he’d chosen everyone on the team because they were just as formidable.

So he and the three who are left start with almost no information, but work methodically, step by step, to follow in the footsteps of their fallen comrades and discover just what enemy they had faced. And gradually they learn that their friends had stumbled onto something big, with national and international implications. And now it’s up to the survivors to stop a very dangerous operation, succeeding where their team members had failed.

They are still an elite team, but it’s been a decade since their glory days, and all of them recognize small mistakes along the way, or moments of slower reaction. And because of this and because of the deaths of the others, you get the feeling that Reacher feels justified in refusing all invitations to stay in touch once they finish this job. In fact, at one point he virtually admits to one team member that because you always lose people or things (his mother and brother have died in previous books, and now he’s alone), it’s better not to get attached, make plans, or even own anything. He never says it hurts him, but you don’t have to speculate too hard to realize that’s what he means.

When I compare Reacher in Bad Luck and Trouble and The Enemy with the man I first encountered in Nothing to Lose, which comes later in his personal chronology, I can’t help but wonder where Lee Child is taking this character. Again I come back to the fact that in mysteries and thrillers, it’s said that the plot is much more important than the characters. And certainly the plot in this book was intricate and intriguing, with several twists that keep the reader turning the pages.

But Reacher’s character is a keystone of this entire series. And while he remains absolutely upright, honourable, and honest in his own way (his means of acquiring money is very entertaining), there’s still the fact that he feels no compunction about simply killing a proven wrongdoer without even attempting to go through a normal process of law. In this book, in fact, the body count is alarming.

And then there’s the adamant refusal to form attachments, even to the shirt he bought yesterday. He has the attitude, “If I never possess anything, nobody can hurt me by taking it away.” For a man who is perfectly willing to take risks that could cost him his life, when it comes to emotional risk, he’s like a wounded child cowering in a dark closet, methodically blocking every crack in the door that could let in any light. The man needs serious counselling. And unless Nothing to Lose was some kind of aberration, it appears that he’s getting less recognizably human with each adventure he has. Which makes me wonder where the author is taking him, or if he really knows.

I get more intrigued by this character with each book I read, and maybe that’s all that Lee Child is aiming for. But I still hope it’s more than that. Maybe if I can find all the books somewhere, start at the beginning, and read them all in order, I might find some answers.