I recently finished The Killing Floor  by Lee Child. Here are my thoughts:

This is the first book in the Jack Reacher series by Child and the first book of his that I have read. Growing up, I always saw Child’s books laying around my house as my dad is a big fan of his. While looking for something new to read, I stumbled across this on Audible and decided to give it a try.

Here is the quick summary:

“Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter. He’s just passing through Margrave, Georgia, and in less than an hour, he’s arrested for murder. Not much of a welcome. All Reacher knows is that he didn’t kill anybody. At least not here. Not lately. But he doesn’t stand a chance of convincing anyone. Not in Margrave, Georgia. Not a chance in hell.”

Well, if you can’t tell, it is a murder mystery series. I personally haven’t read any murder mysteries prior to this book, but I have always loved watching them on TV. The Closer, Dexter, the Poirot movies,  I love them all. So I was pretty excited to listen to this murder mystery during my long drive up to San Francisco (for those of you who haven’t been keeping up with my blog, read here).

The Audible version is narrated by Dick Hill and he does a fantastic job. He reads at a pace that makes sense for the storyline, just fast enough to keep you at the edge of your seat, but not too fast that you miss key moments or words. I will often find myself skipping a sentence or two while reading an intense or suspenseful paperback because I really want to know what happens! Then, shamed, I will force myself to backtrack and read what I missed. Does any one else do that? No, just me?  Well, we keep it real here on FromBrownEyes and I will often skip ahead, so I knew that I would want to check out the audio version instead of the paperback. It was a good call.

This book taught me a few things:

• How to wash $100 bills – this should prove extremely useful as I currently have no income.
• That a headbutt is much more effective than a punch –   another useful piece of knowledge, but one that I hope to not have to use.
• Why I am lucky that I don’t wear glasses – they are a huge identifier and (spoiler alert) Reacher almost gets killed for wearing them.

This book is the first in a series of 20 (yes, twenty!) and I do plan on reading them all. Looks like I have my work cut out for me!

If you still need a little convincing to give this book a read, check out the 2012 Jack Reacher movie staring Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike. It is really good and should still be on Netflix! Interestingly, it is the first Jack Reacher movie to be made, but is based off of Child’s 9th book in the series, One Shot. I can only assume this means the books get better!

-TM

Will you give this book a try? Let me know below.