Past Tense
Ratings70
Average rating4
One of the best Reacher stories I've read. The tight timeline keeps pages turning and, as always, Jack is a stone cold badass. Loved it.
Vacation reading #2.
Because it is vacation I must needs read a Reacher, this is my third now. Not bad! I rooted hard for the Canadians and Reacher was Reacher so all was well in vacation land.
Reacher stands at a “T” in the road, does he turn left and look at his unknown past or does he turn right and walk into unknown future - he takes a step left.
Jack Reacher is walking through New Hampshire when he sees a sign to a town where his father says he was born and curiosity makes him take that street into town. As he slogs his way through census records, police reports, and town records, he manages to find himself helping out a person or two which finds him in a bit of some hot water with some of the local “gangsters” and of course the police who want to keep their town quiet. There is another Reacher in town who has his own agenda and does not want Jack to have any part in it.
Did what I just write sound boring to you? Lee Child gave us 487 pages of this story in Past Tense, his 23rd Jack Reacher novel. I love the Reacher character and even he would say that this story dragged on too long. The search for the birthplace of his father was not that exciting nor was the resolution which was resolved (or was it) in the final chapter very quickly. As for Marc Reacher's storyline, this too was dragged out and we were told it was to psych out the participants of his game, but once again it was quickly solved in the last chapter. There was no real tension or excitement in the book. It was just a long roundabout as Jack went on his way again. Hopefully the next book brings some excitement to Jack's life again and to our's - see you in the next town.
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This was my first Jack Reacher novel in audiobook format. I must admit I really love Jeff Harding's style and his voice is amazing. Now I wish I had listened to the rest of the series in audiobook format!
Great story and love the background on where Jack Reacher came from.
Oh this is a good one! A tense and sinister mystery thriller with all of the classic Reacher features. I'm not sure about some of Reacher's dialogue. He seemed too chatty. Otherwise one of my favourites.
Reacher is still going strong, travelling across the country with just the clothes on his back and a toothbrush in his pocket. In Past Tense he decides to visit the place where his father grew up. However, he soon realises that the things his father told him don't add up.
I just love Jack Reacher - it's sort of formulaic but i find that i don't really mind that. Great character!
★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Shorty and Patty are a young couple from a rural Canadian community on their way to New York City to sell off some beloved possessions in order to make enough money to go to Florida and start their lives. Which sounds like a great idea (assuming they're not ripped off in NYC) – if only they'd ever done basic maintenance on the car they're driving. They end up breaking down outside a small town in New Hampshire, nowhere near a decent city.
The owners of a newly refurbished hotel outside town take pity on them and rent them a room for a little cheaper than they should and offer to help with getting their car going again – they even invite them to dinner their first night with them. Yes, I said first night – home repairs aren't doing the job, so they have to call a tow truck/mechanic to fix the car – which is going to pretty much wipe the couple out. But what choice do they have?
Still, something doesn't seem right about the whole thing. Shorty's a trusting guy and rolls with everything that happens, but Patty smells something. She thinks a lot – incidentally, she thinks a lot like Reacher. Which is annoying when you're reading a book starring Reacher that you get a clone. But it's good for her and Shorty and just might end up saving their lives. It'd be better for the both of them if she had any of Reacher's skills other than his ability to analyze a situation, but, I guess you take what you can get.
Meanwhile, Jack Reacher comes into the same town those two are stranded outside of. He was passing near by and on a lark decides to stop in Laconia, his father's birthplace. He's never met anyone from that side of the family, and his father said almost nothing about his childhood experiences there. So Reacher's a bit curious about the town – he doesn't even know if there might be a cousin or three around. It turns out that finding anything about his family is almost impossible in the official records – and there's a decent chance that there's no one around who knows anything about them that's not in the official records.
While that's going on, in the middle of the night Reacher encounters an attempted sexual assault and, ahem, dissuades the attacker. This attacker doesn't press charges or anything, but it turns out that he's connected to a significant crime family in the Northeast. Reacher is informed about this and is encouraged to leave town soon by a former MP turned local law enforcement officer that he's become acquainted with. Reacher doesn't like to be told what to do – by anyone – and there's something about his father's past that has him more curious than he's been before and wants to track that down.
These two stories run independently of each other, while happening very near each other. Reacher does come to the hotel and asks a couple of questions about his quest about the same time that Patty's getting suspicious, but the two don't cross paths.
Now, I didn't right down the page number when Reacher's story intersects with Shorty's and Patty's – but I do know that it hadn't happened by page 245 (of 382). Which is pretty astounding, and is definitely a new way to bring Reacher into the main events of a novel. I doubt it's a trick Child can pull off again, but I'd like to see him try. If he doesn't show up, bad things will happen – and will likely continue to happen – but it's hard to say just how bad it'd all be. But Reacher does show up, and he does his usual thing, and many more people live than otherwise would have. Which isn't to suggest that no one dies after he shows up, it's just that most of them aren't the people that seemed likely to die 30 pages earlier.
There's little violence until the end of the book (there's Reacher's dissuasion, and two other minor – by Reacher's standards – fights), but once the fighting starts, it doesn't stop until there's a whole lot of violence and bloodshed. Tension and unease that's been mounting slowly over the whole book, are unleashed - and most of the last twenty percent (or so, I'm just guessing) of the novel is as violent and action-packed as you could hope for. Once that switch is flipped, it's on.
This wasn't my favorite Reacher novel – by far – but it was a really engrossing read. I enjoyed it – and really think if Jack Reacher hadn't been the fly in the ointment for the people trying to manipulate and hurt Shorty and Patty, I think I'd have enjoyed this much more. But I expect more from Lee Child than I do other writers, and this time, I just don't think he pulled it off. I'm willing to bet he does better next year, and I'll content myself with that hope.
Quite good. Storyline seems to be derived from a much older novel, but the plot was expertly integrated into a modern setting.
2.5 / 5 Not Lee Child's best effort. A very contrived and weak story, somewhat drawn out - should have been a novella.
You always get what you expect from a Reacher book. In an almost textbook manner, Reacher knocks around town while things slowly heat up. This time around, events are on more of a slow boil. Events unfold for a pair of characters in one location for an unusually long time. The reader is left to wonder how that series of events will eventually intersect with what's taking place for Reacher in the meantime. Rest assured, the cast of characters eventually cross paths and to great effect. It just takes a long time to reach the inevitable intersection. The entire time, if you can put up with all of the point of view characters pedantically dissecting the world around them and the motivations of those they encounter the exact same way Reacher is famous—perhaps infamous—for, you're in for another satisfying Reacher novel.
I sound disheartened, yet I have rated this 4-stars? I can almost hear you thinking these words. Like I said at the start: You get what you expect from a Reacher book. It's worth reading, but the book could have been 50-75 pages shorter and nothing would have been missed. The story was good, but I don't think an author lacking Child's name could get away with this so easily and still sell so well.
Reacher Being Reacher. This is Reacher number 23, and kind of in the middle of the pack overall. Not the best Reacher story, but not the worst either. Third person again, and while the bad guys are truly bad, they aren't quite as bad as I was fearing - I thought early on Child might be going for more current headlines ala the last Reacher tale, and instead he shifts into something that is rumored online but which I've never seen actual evidence of. Don't start with this book if you're new to Reacher, but if you've read even a single Reacher reading this one out of order won't be a problem other than introducing certain new wrinkles that could be interesting going forward, should Child decide to pursue them.
