Book Review: The Killing Floor by Lee Child

I admit that this is the first Lee Child book I have read. For some reason I just wasn’t interested in stories about a wandering hero who hobos around the country stumbling into trouble. After much cajoling I picked up the first Jack Reacher novel, The Killing Floor. It is not a bad book; in fact I am hoping that the causes of my main criticisms will disappear in later Reacher novels.

The Killing Floor has some very strong points. Child does a masterful job of plotting. There are twists throughout the book and even a throw away subplot works its way into the story. I only have two issues with the plotting. First, the identity of the head villain is apparent too early in the book. The second is hard to explain without referencing events in the book and disclosing spoilers, but I'll try. There are certain events that would have even incompetent cops asking a very significant question about how these events could have occurred. Unbelievably, neither Reacher nor a detective with 20 years of experience in a big city police department ever asks the question.

Regarding criticisms, I have two major ones. The first is a lack of character development. The story is told in the first person from the perspective of Reacher. I understand this makes development of other characters harder to pull off. Even so, the main supporting characters come off as two dimensional. I found myself not really caring what happened to them.

The second criticism is Child not only goes into too much detail, but at times he does so in the middle of action sequences. This is supposed to be a page turning action thriller, yet in the middle of the culminating action scene Child has Reacher go off on a page of repetitive and excruciating detail about what he sees. Ruining the flow of that action scene alone is a reason not to give the book a great review.

I have a couple of other quibbles. First, Child has a habit of ending characters’ statements by tacking on the word “right” turning it into a question. The second quibble is Reacher will enter into a kind of Socratic teaching mode. He will learn something important; tell a character that he has learned something; then instead of telling them what he knows he asks questions trying to get the character to discover the information. This is so annoying I am surprised one of the characters didn’t pull out a gun and shoot him. It is also incredibly unrealistic as there is an impending deadline to solve the mystery and asking questions instead of just telling what you know is ridiculous.

Some have criticized the book for its preposterous coincidences and unbelievable plot, noting that if these events had really happened the place would be crawling with both federal and state law enforcement. To these criticisms I say, “So what.” This is fiction and Child has a literary license to tread into the unbelievable. Some readers constantly complain that a book is, “not realistic enough.” How much realism do they want? Cops' lives are full of boring detail and in real life events take much longer than most readers would be able to tolerate.

In summery The Killing Floor is a good, but flawed thriller. I give it 3 ½ stars.