This was the first Jack Reacher novel I've read. I'm not really sure whether it's the recent discussion of Child and Reacher on the Dorothyl listserv or the fact that the book was sent to me as an ARC and I felt like I had to read it, but I just never warmed up to the character. Or maybe it's because I'm coming to it mid-series (I'm one of those readers who likes to start at the beginning and read in order).

Whatever the case, I can see the point of those who complain that Reacher is something of a superhero. No one could take the constant abuse he does. He swims in the freezing ocean. He beats up steroid-enhanced bad guys. He kills dozens of faceless, cardboard bad guys. The thing I was most bothered by is his cold-bloodedness. Sure, the bad guys in the book are really bad guys, but Reacher could give Richard Stark's Parker a run for his money in the emotionless, steely-determination department. He doesn't seem to care--he's a killing machine--and that got old. I was especially bothered by the way he does away with the main bad guy, who had escaped his wrath ten years previously--with a slowly-inserted, razor-sharp chisel to the head! Yuck! Maybe the guy deserved it (he's drawn as a very, very bad guy in the book), but Reacher shouldn't be enjoying it.

At one point in the book, Reacher quotes Nietzsche--"whatever doesn't destroy us, makes us stronger." I think he needs to review the quote (also Nietzsche?) about how, when you're chasing monsters, you'd better be careful not to become one yourself. I guess it was the whole casualness with which the violence is handled that bothered me about the book, and I'm not someone who shies away from violence or from dark books. I don't think I'll be reading more in this series. A disappointment.

Readers would not go wrong in reading Child's back-list, but Persuader stands on its own, as do all the Jack Reacher novels. That's because Reacher is a character without a lot of baggage-literally. He has no home, no car, no family and not much more than the clothes on his back. No, he's not a derelict scrounging around in the garbage cans, rather he is ex-Military Police who just chooses to travel light and sees where life takes him. Usually that involves an adventure with a lot of shooting bad guys. Belief has to be suspended occasionally because no one could possibly get into as much trouble as Reacher does. Each Reacher novel is set in a new location with a new cast of supporting characters.

The first eighteen pages of Persuader have so much action, I was wondering if I was reading the climax instead of the first chapter. Inevitably, the pace has to slow down. There are some moments that drag, but overall it's a page-turning book. One quibble I have with the book, is that the continuity is broken by a back-story that dispersed throughout the present day story. The back-story just did not transition well. I was often lost for several paragraphs until I realized that the scenes took place ten years ago. It would have been better go give the past story it's own page and italicize it so the reader knows it is separate from the main story. Another problem is that the book veers off into the implausible one time too many for me.

Being a Lee Child fan I wanted to give Persuader 4 stars because I did enjoy it, but in the end just felt that this was not one of Child's best books.

In his seventh Jack Reacher novel, "Persuader," Lee Child breaks no new ground. Reacher is still a macho, intelligent and compassionate individual. He is a combination of brains and brawn, a thinking man's fighting machine. Reacher has an encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry and he rarely forgets a face or lets go of an old grudge.

While in Boston, Reacher sees something that makes his blood run cold. In front of his eyes is a dead man walking. Reacher had killed a villain named Quinn ten years earlier. Not only had he shot Quinn in the head, but he also saw the body fall off a cliff. Now, Reacher spots Quinn getting into a chauffeured limousine near Symphony Hall, and that presents Reacher with a big problem. How did his nemesis escape death after being shot in the head and then falling off a cliff? More to the point, how can Reacher just go about his business, knowing that his old enemy is alive and well?

Reacher decides to get to Quinn by infiltrating the illegal organization of Zachary Beck, one of Quinn's associates. In the process, Reacher hooks up with federal agents who agree to work with him. They are hoping that Reacher can help them find a female agent who disappeared after going undercover to track Beck's activities.

"Persuader" features one nifty villain, a giant named Paulie who is hopped up on steroids. Punching Paulie is like attacking a brick wall. There is no character development in "Persuader" and none is needed. The book works because Lee Child delivers what the reader wants and expects. As in the old westerns, Jack Reacher is the lone gunman who rides into town to get rid of the bad guys. In a chaotic and unpredictable world, it is nice to know that there is a man who is unafraid of danger and who cannot rest until he gets the job done.

I don't want to say too much about this book. I use it a lot. But I think what is in this book has been said so much more clearly elsewhere. I would rather attack econometrics using Greene's clarity or if I were interested in time-series, I would much rather have Hamilton. It is okay. It was a warhorse for its time. But unless you need it for a class, I think there are better references out there.

Another review stated that Green was a clearer book than Judge et al. No way. This book starts and concludes thoughts without the constant refer to section blah blah blah found in Green. Also Judge et al. is accurate; something sorely missing in Green. Hamilton on the other hand focuses strictly on time series, and forecasting. If you want a solid reference for econometrics this is the most complete and well thought out book available.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the classic pre-Civil War tale of a young boy, Huck, and a runaway African-American slave named Jim. Huck leaves because of his abusive father, and Jim has escaped his owner to become a free man in the North. On their raft, swiftly traveling down the Mighty Mississippi, Huck and Jim come across many southern towns along the river, bringing them to meet many interesting characters, and many adventures.
In this book, many southern dialects are used, and although it may be difficult to read at times, the overall effect created by it makes the story more lifelike. Being pre-Civil War, some of the language is outdated, and it may be difficult to read over some of the terms and ideas used and expressed, but the only reason for their use is to show Mark Twain's overall motive of the book that proves the negative effects of slavery in the United States.
If you liked The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, you'll love this book, because of their similarities in background, and the fact that they share the same main characters. Both books are Twain's masterpieces, and should both be read by all generations, young, old, and still to come.

This volume, the sixth of James Lees-Milnes' incomparable diaries, confirms his undeservedly minor reputation as one of the best diarists of the second half of the twentieth century. Covering 1973 and 1974 he records life with his wife Alvilde, both then in their early sixties. Although he had retired from the National Trust and they were based at Alderley Grange, their comfortable house and garden in Gloucestershire, Lees-Milne continues to visit London and a variety of country houses; but now as a friend of the owners (and occasionally as a celebrated expert). Alvilde was a formidable, cultivated, socially gregarious character who widened her husband's already wide circle of smart and aristocratic friends and acquaintances. Ancient family retainers, old neighbours, dukes, duchesses, and members of the Royal Family are encountered and keenly observed. Jeremy Paxman described the early wartime diaries as "suffused with the aroma of decline" but with many of those crumbling houses saved, it is now his friends who are ailing, along with Dutch elms throughout the country, and (in his reactionary eyes) the country itself which he sees as riven by socialism, strikes and IRA bombs. He deplores beards and flares, bad manners and most of all philistines but he manages to do so without appearing especially priggish or prim. His style has been described as "purple-ish mandarin" but the elegant combination of self-irony, detachment, modesty and waspishness (and none of the tact he displayed to his hosts) makes for compelling reading. Like any good diarist he reveals as much of himself as others. His prejudices are predictable and sharply expressed but not unexpected for someone of his class and generation. He regarded political correctness as deceitful and admitted to being an unashamed elitist. In the canon of twentieth century diarists, James Lees-Milne shines brightest. While Sir Henry 'Chips' Channon lustrously captured the glamorous centre of political and aristocratic world of London in the thirties and forties, his conceit and lack of personal candour leave him a somewhat unsympathetic figure. Cecil Beaton's diaries are full of vivid descriptions and fascinating insights into an equally glamorous but wider world than Chips Channon's but again they tend to lack the personal touch. Evelyn Waugh's diaries are brilliantly readable but as they were invariably written at night after he had eaten and drunk well, they lack the sparkle of his letters (which were usually written in the morning). The only other diarist with whom he might be compared is Frances Partridge, the very last of the Bloomsberries. The worlds of these two diarists occasionally intersect but Mrs Partridge's is more confined and, given her sympathetic and tolerant nature, her life and thus her diaries are all too often peopled by bores. James Lees-Milne died in 1997, aged 89, and so his readers can hope for another two decades of diaries to follow Ancient as the Hills. Mark McGinness

Author Anna Lee Robe-Terry is a distant cousin of mine, who has written not just a book of recipes, but an evocation of the atmosphere of our northern West Virginia roots. Disabled by a chronic disease, she lost home, job and possessions until she moved onto the old Robe homestead in Marion County determined to survive. "If life gives you wild grapes, then make jelly" is her philosophy. She began investigating the wild plants that she had grown up with and educating herself in botany and the ways of the old settlers. Her recipes are wonderful just to read. I have tried the Snapping Turtle soup recipe myself and can recommend it as a definite change of pace from clam chowder. She also has a recipe for skunk (!) that resulted from a hilarious end to a hunting trip. I would recommend this book not only to people in the area, but those interested in its pioneer culture and folklore.

The book is excellent for the mathematically inclined student who masters well linear lagebra. It uses matrix notaion extensively and enables one to generalize results without getting lost. I used that book in my intermediate econometrics course at the undergraduate level. I am convinced it is a mistake to start learning econometrics by first using the algebraic approach then the matrix approach. This only brings about confusion. This book is excellent as when one thinks hard through theoretical results it is much easier to get a good grasp of the empirical results one finds in applied work. I always consult this book first when I am a bit rusty in classical and special topics in econometrics. The book is not up to date to more modern econometrics such as cointegration and unit root analysis (those subjects don't exist in it).

I find this book an invaluable resource when teaching new managers the thought process and logic behind managing IT resources, staff and other related topics. This is one of the few books where it gives an example of how to write a RFP. I think any IT manager or new manager should have this book in their collection

SHAPING SURVIVAL is a wonderful quartet of essays written by four talented and accomplished American Indian women from the Northern Plains. Each woman opens personal windows to her experiences of survival in the midst of prejudice and abusive situations beginning in early childhood. Each of these four life stories is a tribute to American Indian spirit, intellect, and patience, and each challenges the pervasive stereotypes and domineering attitudes still common in general society. The thoughtful reader of SHAPING SURVIVAL will come away with new respect for the strength of spirit and courage that thrives among American Indian communities and how that strength makes American better.

I'm attracted to Lee Child's novels because of the hardboiled and self-contained nature of his hero, Jack Reacher. After almost two decades as a military cop in the U.S. Army, Jack now wanders the U.S. with only the clothes on his back - no car, no charge cards - and a penchant for crossing paths with assorted villains. Very soon, the reader begins to feel sorry for the Bad Guys.

Reacher is so unpolished that one sometimes wonders how he reached officer grade O-4 (Major), which would imply managing a wardrobe, knotting a tie, and displaying minimal social skills in the officers' mess and at the CO's annual Christmas party. It's not that Jack is a Neanderthal; he just doesn't care to run with the rest of the lemmings anymore.

In WITHOUT FAIL, M.E. Froelich, who heads the Secret Service protection detail for the newly elected Vice President, Brook Armstrong, hires Reacher to audit the security of the new Veep's protective screen. Froelich is also the ex-girlfriend of Jack's dead brother. After finding holes through which a potential assassin could drive a monster SUV, Reacher learns why the Service really wants his help. The VP is receiving credible death threats. And it may be an inside job.

I would've awarded WITHOUT FAIL at least one more star had it not been a Jack Reacher adventure. But it is, and here our prickly protagonist has to play well with others: Froelich, her boss Stuyvesant, FBI guy Bannon, and a colleague from Reacher's old Army days, ex-Sergeant Frances Neagley. Reacher's talent for punitive violence is severely curtailed compared to past episodes, revealing itself only at the very beginning and the very end. In between, Jack is reduced to being a consultant, even to the point of wearing a suit. Say it ain't so, Lee!

The most interesting character is Neagley, now employed by a civilian security firm. She's ostensibly more deadly at physical combat than Reacher himself, and he admits to being afraid of her skills. So, the reader waits, hoping she'll unleash some mayhem. In the meantime, we learn that Frances, while being a little in love with her old military boss, has a severe dislike of being touched due to some unspecified trauma in her past. Unfortunately, Neagley remains mostly a cipher, and the entertainment value of her character is left pretty much unexploited. Perhaps she'll appear in a future Reacher novel. Better still, the author should give her a series of her own.

I hope the next Reacher thriller is JACK IS BACK. With a vengeance.

When Lee Child wrote the KILLING FLOOR several years ago, I new that his first novel was so well written that it was going to be a difficult book to surpass. Though I continued to buy his novels in hardcover whenever they came out, I found myself more disappointed than amazed at their quality. ECHO BURNING won me back over and made me eager for the next one in the series. I'm extremely happy to say that Mr. Child's newest novel, WITHOUT FAIL, is the best in the "Jack Reacher" series. Not only did the author manage to grab my attention in the first chapter, he kept me anxiously reading during a day-and-a-half period of time while I was at the bus stop, during my breaks at work, and into the wee hours of the morning at home as sleep beckoned me. I finished the book with a big, silly grin on my face, saying a silent "thank you" to Mr. Child for writing such an excellent novel and for providing so much fun. WITHOUT FAIL brings Jack Reacher back as a private consultant to the United States Secret Service. A serious threat has been made against the newly elected Vice President, and the head of his protection detail, M.E. Froelich, believes that there's a possibility the threat is coming from inside the Service. She uses her previous relationship with Jack's late brother, Joe, as a lure to get our ex-military policeman to help her investigate the threat and hopefully to prevent the Vice President from being assassinated. Jack, knowing that two heads are better than one, calls in his own Army friend, Frances Neagley, to assist him in tracking down the potential killers and to watch his back. Together, they quickly begin to find flaws in the protection detail around the Vice President and realize that there's no way they can actually stop someone from killing the government official. Their only course of action is to anticipate the moves of the would-be assassins and to attack first. What Jack doesn't anticipate, however, is that he will fall in love with his dead brother's former girlfriend, which only adds to the problems he has to solve before the bodies start piling up. Though WITHOUT FAIL is low on action, the story line more than makes up for it with its multi-layers of suspense that keeps the reader speculating as to whether or not the threat to the Vice President is coming from within or outside of the Secret Service. We also learn more about Jack's brother, Joe, and their relationship with each other. Jack comes alive in ways that make him seem more human and gives us a greater understanding of why he's such a loner. With an inside look at how difficult it is for the Secret Service to protect a politician, WITHOUT FAIL delivers in every way, leading us to an ending that will satisfy even the harshest of critics. If you enjoyed the other "Jack Reacher" novels, then you're going to love the newest edition to the series.

In charge of providing secret service protection to Vice President elect Brook Armstrong, M.E. Froelich worries about keeping the former North Dakota senator safe. She remembers a discussion with her deceased mentor and lover Joe Reacher that the best way to do a security audit is to use an outsider. She traces Joe's brother Jack, who has no paper trail, through a bank transaction in Atlantic City. M.E. hires Jack to "assassinate" the vice president.

When several days pass with no attempts by Jack, M.E. figures he did not try until he suddenly contacts her. Jack and his cohort Frances Neagley prove to M.E. that they had three definite hits on the VP if they chose to really kill him. M.E. invites Jack and Frances to meet her boss, Stuyvesant as the mock security audit was more than a test as the newly elected Veep has received threats. The Secret Service hires them to uncover if the threats are genuine and to help prevent the killing of the vice president.

Jack Reacher is already a great protagonist, but his latest appearance, WITHOUT FAIL, is his strongest adventure yet because he stays in character yet works inside a great political thriller that reaches into the highest levels of DC. Though the story line is loaded with action, the key cast members are fully developed so that new readers know Jack and long term fans appreciate Frances and M.E. Readers will demand more tales of Jack and Frances perhaps in her own series while placing Lee Child's novel at the top of the year's political thrillers.

Harriet Klausner

for his second outing. Child's first novel about the anti-hero, Reacher, "The Killing Floor", was complex and compelling; and hard to put down. Some of his narrative was definitely the work of a "first-time" author. I looked forward to reading about Reacher in series, assuming the plots would stay action-packed, and the writing would improve.

"Die Trying", the sequel, does not disappoint. It is a fast-paced read sketched out along the same lines as Child's first novel, but in a "Montana militia" setting. Child's writing style, unfortunately, has not improved. He mimics the contrivances of the first novel: coincidental involvement of Reacher in a major crime, the necessary female entanglement, the incredible string of violence that finally leads up to Reacher being able to exit to continue his poor man's tour around the country. That's OK, but there is also a ton of repetitive writing - from the detailed description of every weapon Reacher touches or sees in the book, to the numerous times his captors should have done him in, only to see him elude them, but ultimately lose his freedom (but not his life) instead. Child is also guilty of having his characters repeat phrases over and over, and this appears to be a problem of bad editing.

Despite these broad areas of criticism, I gotta admit that its incredibly hard to put a Jack Reacher novel down. Reacher is resourceful and the author succeeds in capturing your attention with every twist of plot.

So...on to Tripwire, the 3rd in the series!

Die Trying is the sensational sequel to Killing Floor by Lee Child. If you haven't read Killing Floor I would recommend doing so before you read this book as it provides a basis for Reacher's character realism. As before the main character is Jack Reacher, ex military policeman and all round superhero. Reacher is intelligent, deductive and physically prodigous, so if you like heroes of the elite variety then this is the character for you. If you prefer cardiganed librarians and lack the ability to suspend disbelief (an essential criteria for FICTION readers) avoid this book as the storyline is astounding with a capital ASTOUND. Lee Child has produced a book that captivates and ensnares its readers with suspense, intrigue and a plot with more twists than a bowl of particularly tangled spaghetti. A man mountain of a psychopath, a beautiful FBI agent with more secrets than the FBI itself, moles galore and the president of the United States, all come together in the valleys of Montana, in a literary feast. If that isn't enough there's even a spot of romance (but not too much). All in all a book for those of us who believe in a world where heroes do exist.

I've spent a long time searching for a hero to replace John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee. I've found him in Jack Reacher. I was clueless when I purchased the book based on an Amazon recommendation, and I was hooked from page 1. Author Lee Child creates well-rounded, fully developed characters and places them in jeopardy in plots that are original and wonderfully complex. The amount of technical information actually *enhances* the action; you barely have time to breathe before being thrust into another life-and-death confrontation with evil. Okay, I'm in love with Jack Reacher, all right? He's way too tall for my tastes, but that's the magic of imagination -- I can make him Richard Burgi in my mind! If you love mysteries with a hard edge or jaw-clenching adventure, you must read this book!