Killing Floor by Lee Child – book review

After watching 2 seasons of “Jack Reacher” on Amazon Prime, was very curious about the series by Lee Child. With each of those episodes having a running time of nearly an hour, with literally as much budget as a full-length movie being spent on them, visually the series were quite appealing. And as compared the movies where the titular role was played by Tom Cruise, the guy who dons the role in the web series seems more like how the author has envisaged the character. In fact, after reading the book I realize how much of a misfit, Tom Cruise had been, physically at least, for playing that character. Jack Reacher is 7 feet tall and is bulkier than a bull. Imagine Tom Cruise in that role you will understand what I am talking about. If I remember correctly, Killing Floor happens to be the first of the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. The giant ex-army man visits a town, with literally no purpose and ends up destroying half the town. The way to story begins and proceeds till halfway through resembles “Rambo – First blood” a lot. Just like Sylvester Stallone, Jack Reacher also is ex-army and has a physique that guarantees action packed sequences. Suddenly he is thrust into a murder investigation, with him being the suspect and the twist of all being that the victim being his own brother with whom he had lost contact years back. Why was his brother killed? By whom? What made him visit that town that is literally a “nowhere” place? And who were the perpetrators forming an interesting story line that has adrenaline pumping action, coupled with some smart investigation, and thinking, culminating in raw power packed ending that is typical to commercial entertainers which sans any logic.

The premise of using one Dollar bills for counterfeiting higher denominations and the fact that for some strange reason all denominations of US currency being of same size being the key element of the plot, makes it quite an interesting thought process which is novel as well. The word play on “E Pluribus Unum” was also quite original. But I couldn’t quite follow as to how his brother found this out which I felt was not satisfactorily explained. That apart, the book had all the ingredients to make a pakka action entertainer and having seen the web series before reading the book, I can safely say that they have done good justice to the book, cleverly editing out major portions of the romantic sections, which were making the pace drop. 

Having see the second season of the “Reacher” series I am curious to read the other books and have already started with the next one, that is interestingly title “Die trying”!! 😊