Killing Floor

Killing Floor
by Lee Child
Recommended Ages: 15+

Lee Child is the author of something like 24 Jack Reacher novels, of which this was the first, way back in 1997. The latest, Past Tense, is currently on the paperback rack at retail stores everywhere; another, Blue Moon, is scheduled for release Oct. 29, 2019. Because I didn't start reading this series at the beginning, I already had an idea of what Child was talking about in the preface to a recent re-release of this book, describing how he came to write it, and to create the character of Jack Reacher.

Before plugging this book, I'd like to plug that Author's Note as one of the clearest, most informative and most interesting statements of the intentions behind a well-established literary creation. The elevator summary of it goes something like this: Upon being fired from the BBC, the previously successful British TV writer moved to New York and decided to give novel writing a try. But he wasn't interested in the vulnerable, wounded hero type of protagonist that was then in vogue – the guy with a tortured conscience, an inadequacy complex and a piece of shrapnel lodged a quarter-inch from his heart. Rather, he wanted to read, and therefore he decided to write, about a man of superior strength and ability, with no emotional ties, beholden to no higher authority than his own sense of rightness, who sees the big man sticking it to the little guy and puts him down without remorse. He wanted a hero who always wins. And against all probability, against the advice virtually anyone would have given him had he asked, it worked. It works.

It all started with a first-person narrator walking 14 miles in the rain, after midnight, down a stretch of lonely Georgia highway. He arrives at a spruce little diner on the edge of a town called Margrave, orders coffee and a plate of eggs, and has only just been served when almost the whole local police force shows up waving guns and screaming at him. Jack Reacher is arrested for murder – funnily enough, he must have walked right by the victim's body in the rain.

Because it's the weekend, and because the local jail doesn't have overnight cells, he and another dubious suspect get bused to the nearby state penitentiary, supposedly to be stashed in the nice guest rooms reserved for guys who haven't been charged with anything. Somehow, for some reason, they get put in the same cell block as the really bad, bad guys. Attempts to rape and murder them follow as promptly as you please. The other guy has a theory about why this is happening to them, but he's so scared about it that he won't tell Reacher much. Only because Reacher is a tougher SOB than the really bad, bad guys do they live to catch the bus back to Margrave. It turns out their alibis stood up.

But then more bodies start to drop, including the corrupt local police chief. Also, the first victim's identity comes back and it's such a shock that I don't want to spoil it, although that's going to make writing the rest of this synopsis rather hard. Reacher decides to stay and help the chief of detectives (who isn't from around those parts) and an attractive lady cop, who are among the very few people in Margrave that he trusts. His motives differ from theirs a little bit. He has a personal stake, now, in busting the heads of the people who have been trying to either kill him or frame him for murder since he arrived in town. There is a criminal conspiracy afoot, involving too many people who should know better, and a few people who take a sick pleasure in torture and killing. There are innocent people who need protecting. And there is a certain person Reacher feels honor bound to back up, to the bitter end and beyond.

If you know what the phrase "killing floor" means, you will recognize the scene this book's title refers to when you come to it. Suffice it to say, this is an ultra-violent piece of entertainment in which the hero, when asked how he feels about all the people he just killed, says something like, "How do you feel when you put down cockroach powder?" He doesn't linger over their deaths, so if you're looking for those kinds of sick jollies, shop elsewhere. But he dispenses a kind of justice that strikes swiftly and efficiently, seldom leaving time for second thoughts. He protects the girl, even though the news that it doesn't work out between them comes as no surprise.

He passes over Marburg like an avenging angel, and passes on, leaving the town altered out of all recognition but – this is a spoiler only if you don't recall there are 23 more Jack Reacher books to go – he most assuredly leaves. Sure, there are close calls. There's plenty of conflict. There are scenes of gripping suspense and genuine horror. But in this thriller, a unique part of the thrill is knowing that the outcome is all but assured, and watching it come out just so. The directness, the toughness, the uncomplicatedness of Jack Reacher is, in a word, refreshing.