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Best crime thriller of 2018 – “Kill For Me” by author Tom Wood

I had been waiting for this book since reading the previous Tom Wood “The Final Hour” in July 2017 on holiday. This summer had high hopes, England were through to the semi-finals of the World Cup, Roger Federer (my favorite tennis player) was through to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and Tom Wood’s new book was out soon.

Then it all went so, so wrong, England crashed out of the World Cup by losing to Croatia, Roger Federer lost to Kevin Anderson at Wimbledon. It was all left to Tom Wood to bring out a book that would be a decent read, maybe even better than the previous book “The Final Hour”.

Victor the Assassin

Tom Wood’s books are all about the assassin Victor. An ice cool hit man who like Jack Reacher has a skill set mainly centered around paranoia as there is always someone ready to kill him. The only way for him to stay alive is to be overly careful, always on the look out for enemies, never going a direct route to his destination just in case. Victor is more vicious than Jack Reacher, he wouldn’t think twice about killing you even if you had tried to help him. In this new book, Victor is a raw killing machine, more so that previous books. He covers his tracks, killing people, if it means that these people may try to eliminate him at a later date if he had kept them alive.

Is this the best Tom Wood book?

This book is the best crime thriller of 2018. Yes Hellbent was top of this list for 2018, this has now changed. Tom Wood has brought in a thriller that keeps you engaged all the way through, right until the end.

Victor is now his own man, arranging contracts through his broker himself rather than working for the CIA to fulfill their obligations. The book starts with Victor looking to purchase a gun, the people who are selling the gun are trying to set Victor up. This leads into a fight, killings and the typical Victor self-preservation instincts.  The scene is set so well, a bit like a western, Clint Eastwood style with an outlaw taking on multiple cowboys.

The main reason why this book is so much better than other crime thrillers is the plot. Victor is tasked with taking down a Cartel drug leader who is at logger heads with their sister (also a Cartel Drug lord) across the city. The problem is the contract is set up by one sister against the other, hoping that when the other sister is killed by Victor, the city will be back to normal and peaceful. This is a family war that Victor is now involved with, outside of his familiar European territory and in a city that seems to have no real laws. Everyone is potentially an enemy to Victor, who can’t blend in as easy, which only heightens his surveillance skills even more.

Is there any action?

The action in this book is intense, from the opening page set up to the final end scene we are treated to gun battles, martial arts, wrestling and genuine skilled assassins trying to kill. One of the double-cross moments in the book is that Victor is meant to be the only person on this kill contract but the person who orders the hit has also without Victors knowledge hired another assassin. This Assassin is exactly like Victor, highly trained, enjoys the kill and ready to get to the Cartel Drug lord before Victor does. As you can probably guess, the new assassin decides to go after Victor as well, so that they can get all the money from the job.

Final thoughts

The pace of the book and the intriguing character of Victor means that for me this is the best book of the year so far. Jack Reacher fans will be able to enjoy this book before the latest Lee Child book “Past tense” comes out. I would argue that Victor is a better character than Jack Reacher as we don’t know Victor’s past yet.  In this book, some moments come back from the past every now and again to make you wonder how he got to where he is but we don’t yet know what made him an assassin in the first place.

The action is hard and gritty, people are shot in the knee, thrown through windows, shot in the back of the head, strangled, drowned, you name it. Guns are described intricately, scenes are laid out so that you imagine you are there in the hot city of Guatemala. I think Tom Wood has brought out all his skills in this book to make every Jack Reacher fan want to start the Victor series.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Was Tom Cruise the right person to play Jack Reacher?

Hopefully by now you have watched at least one of the Jack Reacher films either at the cinema or on DVD. I watched both films at the cinema and to be honest I was slightly concerned that the big screen films wouldn’t be anywhere near the same feel as the Lee Child Novels.

I was pleasantly surprised with the first movie as the subject matter of a sniper killing people and Jack trying to solve who the murderer was had enough suspense to keep you interested even after reading the book.

The main debate……

The issue that won’t go away with the Jack Reacher novels is the fact that Tom Cruise has been cast as the main character. For me when I first heard this I thought that it was a joke as when you read the books, Jack Reacher is approximately 6ft 5″ and 250 pounds in weight. So Jack Reacher is a big bloke, capable of taking on 5 people or more in a fist fight, someone who is noticed and in books described as a powerful force. When I think of Tom Cruise I didn’t think he would match up to this character, in height and weight also with the intimidating nature of Jack Reacher.

There have been a lot of complaints by avid Jack Reacher readers alike and non Reacher fans moaning that casting someone like Tom Cruise has made the franchise less appealing. The very fact that many avid readers have now got an ideal picture in their heads about who Jack Reacher should be does create a problem for Lee Child.

What were the options?

There were a few different actors who could have played the role of Jack Reacher, some who maybe in my opinion could have provided the look or fit that many readers wanted. The main question for me though would have been even thought they look the part, can they act like Reacher.

Top of my list would be Hugh Jackman, he has the height can beef up and can act as well. I think after seeing him in the new Logan film made me realise he could easily have been the Jack Reacher we wanted. Have a look at the film and you can see elements of Jack Reacher as the aging Wolverine. Buy it here.

Dywane Johnson is the new up and coming action movie star. After making a career in WWE he is now a credible actor. He obviously has the physical presence of Jack Reacher, my only concern would be his acting as most of his films he portrays comical characters.
Liam Neeson is a well known actor who has been in so many different films, currently working in a lot of films that have the who done it feel. For me Liam is slightly too old physically to play Jack Reacher but could easily play and aging Jack Reacher towards the end of the series. He is also able to fight and look convincing doing it.

Verdict

I must admit, Tom Cruise was not the actor for me, not just due to the size or physical presence that he brings. The main issue for me was that he is involved in so many other films franchises, one of them being Mission Impossible as Ethan Hunt and this can get you really confused as to who he is playing when you watch the Jack Reacher movie. If, it was someone else who hasn’t got this franchise then you would probably be more forgiving of mismatch in physicality.

The one thing that Tom Cruise does bring to the role however if pure Hollywood star quality. This could be the physical force that Lee Child was after, someone who on the big screen takes Jack Reacher into a whole other market that other people who have never heard of the Lee Child book series can get hooked into.

I think it came down to yes I can get someone to look like Tom Cruise and Yes someone who is physically imposing, but for Lee Child he probably wanted someone who could act. As an actor Tom Cruise is outstanding and hopefully we will see a third film which in reality brings Jack Reacher to a bigger audience with Mr Cruise being in it.

Let me known what you think, is Tom Cruise the right or wrong person, comments below.

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Lee Child – Jack Reacher Book 21 – Night School

If like me you have read through all the Jack Reacher books you may have got to book number 20 titled “Make Me” and thought, “yes, that was good, probably stop now Lee Child”.

I mean Reacher is getting older and what more can we expect from him.  As a fan I didn’t really want to see Jack Reacher not fighting or remenissing about previous plots and conquests.

I guess I was wrong to even suggest that Lee Child should stop writing about Jack Reacher, as we now have book number 21 titled “Night School”

 

 

If you are reading the books backwards in the wrong order, from the author Lee Child book list, then can I please say politely “STOP”.  In my humble opinion, you need to start at book 1 “Killing Floor” and take a look at the Blog “the Jack Reacher books reading order” on my site to get the best out of them.

Right firstly lets get down to the good stuff.

Night School is it the real deal, is it up to the normal standards?

Okay lots of questions and thoughts about this book so here we go.  Lee Child is obviously an exceptional writer, his fast pace scene setting and the selective descriptions he uses really capture your imagination and makes you feel that you are in the story itself. As normal this book is so easy to read due to Lee Child’s unique writing style. Going back to Reacher’s early days is also a clever aspect of this book as it has endless possibilities for further “spin off” books in the future and gives you a look at a younger Reacher before he left the army.

For me, even though these aspects would normally enhance the reading experience of a Lee Child novel, this time it seemed to give me a slightly different feel as I progressed through the story. Maybe Lee Child is a victim of his own success as I don’t recall any previous “Reacher” books whereby I really struggled to get to grips with it right until the end.

I had to keep really putting the work in to read this book and try and get excited about what I was reading.  Again it could be a bit like the Star Wars Last Jedi film whereby I already had an opinion of what was going to happen.  Upon reading the book or seeing the Star Wars last Jedi film, it just didn’t fit into my idea of what I thought was going to happen.  This doesn’t mean to say its a bad thing, just that I prefer the continuity of characters through a series rather than changing things just because!

The main plot of Night School, revolves around an undercover agent overhearing a request for 100 million from middle eastern contacts but no one knows what this request is for. Reacher teams up with an FBI agent and a CIA agent to solve the mystery but this really doesn’t work as their isn’t much communication between the two agents during the book. Reacher goes off and teams up with Neagley to solve the mystery but during this part of the story, there is a lot of chopping and changing between characters that you kind of get the impression that the book has been written for movie/film scenes in the future.

An example of this would be Reacher chatting through plans in a hotel then stepping out to fight some undercover officers. This type of thing happens throughout the book which slowly becomes boring as there doesn’t seem to be any need for the fight scenes like in previous books.

The ending is really not a massive highlight either as most of the books in the series usually are, this leads me to think maybe the main plot from the start just wasn’t a good enough subject to get the average Reacher fan excited.

Verdict

Overall I think the book would in my eyes a much higher rating if you were new to the Jack Reacher series and had just started reading the Lee Child novels. As a Reacher fan, for me it would probably be the worst of the series due to the incoherent writing and the switching between the scenes.

I’d love to hear your comments on this book so let me know if you agree or disagree with me.  Night School can be bought here

Thanks