The Persuader, Lee Child

The Persuader by Lee Child was a book that I downloaded for my Kindle because it was free.  I realized that I had a ton of these free books and had read very few of them, so I downloaded the Kindle app for my phone and decided to read this one because it was the oldest.

Started: 9/15/2011
Completed: 10/4/2011
Recommendation:  Decent beach book for guys.
Recommended By:  Nobody, free from Amazon
Review:


This book is a pretty quick read.  The broad formula of an action novel is employed.  Guy gets into trouble, but it clever enough, shoots straight enough, or capitalizes on someone else's mistake often enough to get out.  The hero of the novel is the typical gritty ex-something who now employs all his ex-skills to get stuff done that the other ex-guys aren't allowed to use.  He generally gets the girl and somehow maintains the moral high ground despite basically being in the business of killing people.  This is a traditional Western wrapped in a twentieth century skin.  The plot has the occasional surprise, but is almost entirely predictable.  There is sufficient gore to get one to believe the bad guys are, at core, evil.  There are conflicted characters all over the place, but, in the end, everyone who should, does the "right thing."  So this book won't challenge your intellect and the dialog is outright stupid (e.g. "I'm just a guy"), but those are some of the qualities that are fine in a beach read.  The pacing is good and there is an on-going rescue/tension that makes you want to pick the book up and overlook all the stupid stuff.  Maybe this is just a beach read for guys.  If you can't find it for a couple of bucks, it isn't worth the investment and I certainly wouldn't spend my time reading the whole series.