A Wanted Man

Jack Reacher 17

By: Lee Child

Narrated by: Jeff Harding

Brought to you by Penguin.

Read by award-winning narrator Jeff Harding.

**NOW A MAJOR PRIME TV SERIES STARRING ALAN RITCHSON**

When you're as big and rough as Jack Reacher - and you have a badly set, freshly busted nose - it isn't easy to hitch a ride in Nebraska. At last, he's picked up by three strangers - two men and a woman.

Within minutes it becomes clear they're all lying about everything - and there's a police roadblock ahead. There has been an incident, and the cops are looking for the bad guys . . .

Will they get through because the three are innocent? Or because the three are now four? Is Reacher just a decoy?

Although the Jack Reacher novels can be listened to in any order, A Wanted Man follows on directly from the end of Worth Dying For.


'A fascinating, swaggeringly confident performance' Sunday Times

‘Jeff Harding’s [...] narration captures Reacher’s character perfectly [...] you have to savour every minute.’ The Sunday Times

©2012 Lee Child (P)2012 ISIS Publishing Ltd, Random House Audiobooks

Great first half, faulterin slightly

If you’ve listened to books by Lee Child before, how does this one compare?

This a great listen, sections of it being amongst the best Lee Child has done. The opening section of the book, from the point where Reacher accept a lift hitchhiking, to the point he eventually leaves the car, is fantastically tense and intriguing. Both Child and Reacher are in their element here: a tightly controlled environment, with three strangers to suss out and very little to go on, and the dawning realisation that no one in the car is telling the truth... Child's meticulous description of environment and people, Reacher's methodical, pin-sharp throught-narrative, play out fantastically as he tries to get to grips with the mysterious situation. The parallel narrative of a FBI murder investigation interplays very very with Reacher's story as we begin to understand how the events are connected. When Reacher does leave the car, his teamwork with the FBI agent continues to be tense and fascinating. All the Bourne-style evasion tactics, and Sherlock-Holmes-style investigation tactics get a thorough workout. And then I feel the bottom drops out of the story a bit. Without wishing to give anything away, when What's Going On finally becomes clear about three quarters of the way through, a lot of the impetus from the two third of the book seems to be lost. There are some great twists, but perhaps at the expense of a lot of the final third not feeling like its been sufficiently set up by the rest of the book. The ending is a great set piece for any action thriller, though, so it;s hardly a major critisism.

What aspect of Jeff Harding’s performance would you have changed?

He seemed well cast for the tone of the book - measured, laconic and dry, like Child's writing. However, on occasion his determination to intone every line of the narrative in the same way did annoy me. I know Child's writing style is repetitive: he likes to list everything Jack Reacher is thinking about or looinkg at in short, neutral sentences. Harding would give each sentence the exact same rhythm and tonal pattern which got to be a bit grating as the sentences piled up, especially when there were long stretches of narrative with no dialogue to break it up. I wasn't totally convinced by his perfromance of some characters either. He gave the female characters the same exact voice, and delivered Sorrenson's lines in particular in a way I felt was at odds with how they were written (e.g. he made her sound calm where I thought the dialogue implied she was annoyed, or angry where I thoughtthe line was amused etc). I've heard a lot worse performances, though, and Harding certainly kept my attention.

Jack the riddler.

Would you listen to A Wanted Man again? Why?

In probably, the most complicated Lee Child logic to follow, Jack inadvertently falls down the rabbit hole into explosive drama.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

This is the weirdest Jack plot, and some of the others are weird enough.

What does Jeff Harding bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Jeff is the Reacher maker. Good man, good fellow and kind to puppies - I'm sure.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Reacher in a hitch!

Great

I love this series. Intricate plot. Fantastic characters. Great final twist. Jack Reacher Rules. O.K. More please Mr Child.

Lee has done it again

A good solid read ( listen) that kept the interest up right through.
Reacher has done it again,kept us on the edge.
Cant wait for the next one!.

More Classic Reacher

As a self-confessed fan of the Jack Reacher series I was not disappointed by this latest offering from Lee Child. It contains the usual tight and clever plot line as well as plenty of the kind of dry humor and fast paced action you'd expect.
Jeff Harding is a brilliant narrator and captures Reacher perfectly.