John J

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An uninspiring catastrophe. I've read every Reacher novel, many more than once, and this is the most disappointing. Extremely slow, little Reacher action and a superficially, thin story padded out by reams of over-description of, well, everything. I appreciate that scene setting helps the reader visualise but describing in minute detail every single location and scenario is unnecessary, boring and a poor substitute for creative story-telling. The main story starts out well enough with Reacher witnessing a killing and pursuing the bad guys but then it just stops. I remember at one point thinking that for a good part of the book, he'd been travelling by car from point A to point B. Dull. The shallow sub plots probably only exist to fill a void in the main story line but all they do is irritate further. This is the one of only two Reachers I've ever struggled to get through and even then, with such a weak story, the ending wasn't worth waiting for. It's a sad day but I think that after 20 years, this might be goodbye; the love has gone. Thanks a lot Andrew.

I was a big Line of Duty fan (until the "cop out" in the last episode of series 6). Don't believe other reviews; this is not in the same league as LoD. Whilst others congratulate the idea of having a whodunnit set on a submarine, I find it all a bit contrived And predictably, the lead detective has claustrophobia or aguaphobia or PTSD; I'm not sure which. But it's as if the writers haven't thought of a story first so much as asked themselves, "where could we set a story to make it really tense?" "Let's have a claustrophobic detective investigate a murder on a submarine." Hum... I can't comment on the realism of the boat etc, but that's not the issue. The various secret services on both sides if the Atlantic are now getting involved and the plot expanded, probably to compensate for the fairly weak basic storyline. We know the killer's amongst the crew and can't get off. Lets face it, albeit in a house or on a train as opposed to a submarine, this type of story has been written before and by more accomplished writers.