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Lee Child Collection 2: Running Blind / Echo Burning / Without Fail
Running Blind (Engineer: Melissa Coates): Women are dying. Women who have nothing in common except the fact that they once worked for the military. And they knew Jack Reacher. How and why these women are in danger completely baffles the elite FBI team working the case. There is only one certainty: there is a new kind of killer out there, one so calm, cautious, and careful that even the brilliant Reacher is left running blind. Echo Burning (Engineer: Mike Council): Jack Reacher is hitching through the heat of West Texas and getting desperate for a ride. The last thing he's worried about is exactly who picks him up. She's called Carmen. She's a good-looking young woman, she has a beautiful little girl . . .and she has married into the wrong family. Worse, her monster of a husband is soon due out of prison. So she needs protection, and she needs it now. Reacher goes home with her to the lonely ranch where nothing is as it seems, and where evil swirls around them like dust in a storm. Without Fail (Engineer: Melissa Coates): Jack Reacher is approached by a Secret Service agent who needs a favor. "I want to hire you to assassinate the Vice President of the United States," she asks. She is the newly appointed head of the VP's security detail and wants Reacher to try to penetrate her team's shield. What she doesn't tell Reacher - but what he soon discovers - is that a very real and deadly team of assassins has just put the VP in their sights and will stop at nothing to realize their objective.
Audio Cassette
First published January 1, 2004
6 people are currently reading
282 people want to read
About the author
Lee Child
440Ìýbooks33.3kÌýfollowersLee 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.
Killing Floor was an immediate success and launched the series which has grown in sales and impact with every new installment. The first Jack Reacher movie, based on the novel One Shot and starring Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike, was released in December 2012.
Lee has three homes—an apartment in Manhattan, a country house in the south of France, and whatever airplane cabin he happens to be in while traveling between the two. In the US he drives a supercharged Jaguar, which was built in Jaguar's Browns Lane plant, thirty yards from the hospital in which he was born.
Lee spends his spare time reading, listening to music, and watching the Yankees, Aston Villa, or Marseilles soccer. He is married with a grown-up daughter. He is tall and slim, despite an appalling diet and a refusal to exercise.
Killing Floor was an immediate success and launched the series which has grown in sales and impact with every new installment. The first Jack Reacher movie, based on the novel One Shot and starring Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike, was released in December 2012.
Lee has three homes—an apartment in Manhattan, a country house in the south of France, and whatever airplane cabin he happens to be in while traveling between the two. In the US he drives a supercharged Jaguar, which was built in Jaguar's Browns Lane plant, thirty yards from the hospital in which he was born.
Lee spends his spare time reading, listening to music, and watching the Yankees, Aston Villa, or Marseilles soccer. He is married with a grown-up daughter. He is tall and slim, despite an appalling diet and a refusal to exercise.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 10, 2018
“Without Fail�, Lee Child’s sixth book, takes place after a Presidential election with threats being made against Vice President-elect Brook Armstrong, the junior senator from North Dakota.
M.E.Froehlich Ìýis in charge of the secret service team assigned to protect Armstrong. She wants to make sure he is safe and she wants to find someone with the real life skill to test that. It doesn’t take her long to think of Jack Reacher because she had been the girlfriend of his brother Joe (see Killing Floor book 1) and she had a clear idea of how effective he would be.
Jack has no home address, travels without identification, luggage or credit cards, and Froelich’s efforts to find him required her government connections. When she first meets him, she says: "I want to hire you to assassinate the Vice President of the United States." When he learns that she just wants the VP’s defenses tested, he agrees. A few days later he returns reporting and showing pictures of how many ways he found to have penetrated Armstrong’s security.
With the test behind him Reacher is drawn into an active criminal plot where he needs to find someone who really is after the Vice President. It becomes clear that whoever is behind this has put a lot of time and work into a plan, intent on killing. Reacher is confident in his ability to solve the mystery but the Secret Service has drawn different conclusions and then with problems they have to pass the lead to the FBI.Ìý ÌýReacher sees what they don’t and sets off on his own.
The criminal plot and the serious threat it presents is clear long before a motive is. Reacher is the one that finds the motive. ÌýThe weakness of the story is really that the motive and some of the focus of the threat are not realistic perhaps not believable. Even with that weakness in the plot the Reacher character’s approach is to respond breaking down in every changing detail, down to a second by second accounting of the progress. This pulls us into the story, raises the tension and holds our interest to the end. More more on this book see web site and also see the Literary Favorites site for more on Lee Child and Links to his other books
M.E.Froehlich Ìýis in charge of the secret service team assigned to protect Armstrong. She wants to make sure he is safe and she wants to find someone with the real life skill to test that. It doesn’t take her long to think of Jack Reacher because she had been the girlfriend of his brother Joe (see Killing Floor book 1) and she had a clear idea of how effective he would be.
Jack has no home address, travels without identification, luggage or credit cards, and Froelich’s efforts to find him required her government connections. When she first meets him, she says: "I want to hire you to assassinate the Vice President of the United States." When he learns that she just wants the VP’s defenses tested, he agrees. A few days later he returns reporting and showing pictures of how many ways he found to have penetrated Armstrong’s security.
With the test behind him Reacher is drawn into an active criminal plot where he needs to find someone who really is after the Vice President. It becomes clear that whoever is behind this has put a lot of time and work into a plan, intent on killing. Reacher is confident in his ability to solve the mystery but the Secret Service has drawn different conclusions and then with problems they have to pass the lead to the FBI.Ìý ÌýReacher sees what they don’t and sets off on his own.
The criminal plot and the serious threat it presents is clear long before a motive is. Reacher is the one that finds the motive. ÌýThe weakness of the story is really that the motive and some of the focus of the threat are not realistic perhaps not believable. Even with that weakness in the plot the Reacher character’s approach is to respond breaking down in every changing detail, down to a second by second accounting of the progress. This pulls us into the story, raises the tension and holds our interest to the end. More more on this book see web site and also see the Literary Favorites site for more on Lee Child and Links to his other books
January 12, 2018
#4 -- 8.2017 -- I enjoyed it, but def not his best (3 star)
#4 -- 1.2016 --Eh decent
#5 -- June 2017 -- Audio Book (Dick Hill) -- I enjoyed this book again. I love all the Jack Reacher books, but this is not one of the best one's in the series. Both the main female characters are annoying throughout the whole book... but I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to those who
already love Reacher stories.
#5 -- Feb 2016 -- Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Yes Alice got very annoying towards the end of the book, but skimming a bit fixed that and the other main female character was horrible as well. Otherwise Jack Reacher is awesome as always! And the little girl was so adorable! (Four Star)
#6 -- Pretty great read. (Four star)
#4 -- 1.2016 --Eh decent
#5 -- June 2017 -- Audio Book (Dick Hill) -- I enjoyed this book again. I love all the Jack Reacher books, but this is not one of the best one's in the series. Both the main female characters are annoying throughout the whole book... but I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to those who
already love Reacher stories.
#5 -- Feb 2016 -- Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Yes Alice got very annoying towards the end of the book, but skimming a bit fixed that and the other main female character was horrible as well. Otherwise Jack Reacher is awesome as always! And the little girl was so adorable! (Four Star)
#6 -- Pretty great read. (Four star)
June 21, 2024
This is a 3-story audio book that includes 3 of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series: #4-Running Blind, #5-Echo Burning, and #6-Without Fail. These are all abridged on this Lee child Collection. Last fall of 2023, we finished listening to Without Fail/#6, and this spring we finished listening to Echo Burning /#5 - both during long car trips.
We have one more to finish: Running Blind/#4. Our June 2024 trip ended while we were still on the 4th of 5 CDs.
We have one more to finish: Running Blind/#4. Our June 2024 trip ended while we were still on the 4th of 5 CDs.
August 7, 2022
The writing style annoyed me on this one - repetitive and pointless dialogue in particular, and a little too much of the boring inbetween plot point stuff like the characters travel and eating. The saving grace was that the mystery was so well done that I wanted to find out who dunnit & how. Once the killer and method was revealed, some of the repetitive dialogue made sense.
February 20, 2024
Sorry to see my guy Jack running into relationship troubles.
But it doesn't surprise me.
But it doesn't surprise me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 30, 2009
I am a mystery/espionage who done it freaky!! I was introduced to Lee Child by Robert Parker who put together a book on short story's called THRILLERS. since I like what he write I got and it is full of writers I never read Each short story is only a few pages long. Everyone of them a winner. So I have set out to read more of each author. I live in a complex that has its own library and have been alble to read a lot of these new authors.
Any way Lee Childs main character is Jack Reacher. He 6'5 240 pound of muscle ex military and does not have and address or car. He is one of the last good guys. He is very interesting. And Lee Childs is getting better every book I read. I need to write down what I read cause I just ordered the same book from 2 different sellers> LOL..
Vie/Maj
Any way Lee Childs main character is Jack Reacher. He 6'5 240 pound of muscle ex military and does not have and address or car. He is one of the last good guys. He is very interesting. And Lee Childs is getting better every book I read. I need to write down what I read cause I just ordered the same book from 2 different sellers> LOL..
Vie/Maj
February 21, 2016
The Jack Reacher books are far from being the greatest literature on the planet, but they work well as guilty pleasures.
I admit, I have more than a couple of issues with the writing yet the stories are always entertaining and always make up for it. They are the kinds of books I have no wish to admitting I enjoy, yet I cannot deny the fact that I do enjoy the Jack Reacher novels.
I admit, I have more than a couple of issues with the writing yet the stories are always entertaining and always make up for it. They are the kinds of books I have no wish to admitting I enjoy, yet I cannot deny the fact that I do enjoy the Jack Reacher novels.
May 25, 2013
Read Running Blind... Jack Reacher is targeted by the FBI for several murders of retired military women. It is fast paced, a who done it mystery. Lots of twists in the story. If you like espionage mysteries you will enjoy.
July 21, 2015
I previously read all three and by comparison would start as listed----RB - EB - WF. Reacher is an icon and is the epitomy of badassity. Sometimes need a breather to check out other genres but always come back to Jack.
November 7, 2010
3 abridged books in one collection. Lee Child is a great author, and his main character, Jack Reacher, is always interesting.
May 23, 2015
I really enjoy Lee Child and Jack Reacher! This one was less thrilling than most of his books, but was still entertaining.
May 19, 2015
Started off strong then I figured out the who and how and why. Most of the punch left the story after that.
Read
December 28, 2016As usual, predictable but very enjoyable escape reading.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
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