Killing Floor by Lee Child

Released: March 1997

Killing Floor is the first book in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. At the time of this writing, there are a total of fifteen books in the series, with the sixteenth book The Affair being released later this year October 2011.

Jack Reacher is a wanderer with no home, no family and no job. An ex-military detective expertly trained in self-defense, Jack finds himself in deep trouble when his roaming takes him to a desolate town in Georgia where he is wrongly accused of murder. After Jack is found innocent early on in the novel, he steps in to help a trustworthy local detective find out why people keep turning up violently murdered.


In every book-related social media network I've ever been a part of over the years, I have consistently been stumbling upon Lee Child's name. After reading Killing Floor, I finally understand what all the hype is about -- Jack Reacher is an incredibly intriguing and bad-ass character! Child also rivals Jeffery Deaver with setting up the most complex, suspenseful mysteries with abundant red herrings.

One specific component that I admire in Child's writing is his ability to sprinkle subtle clues throughout the novel that mystery experts will recognize right away as being key elements to the plot. As much as I've always appreciated Deaver's style, his mystery elements are always sprung at the last minute with surprise and presented as twists; whereas Child's clues are more of a piece of the giant puzzle that comes together gracefully for the last portion of the book.

I had to share with several people around me the snippets of love scenes in Killing Floor. While Child can go into explicit, vast detail on roundhouse kicks and how to kill bad guys, his romantic style is short and choppy - but entertainingly so! After all, hard-core romance fans won't be reading Killing Floor, but I couldn't help but chuckle.

Here's an excerpt of a love scene between Jack Reacher and his lady:

"It was frantic. It was like the end of the world. We were bathed in sweat. Totally spent."

Haha...too funny.

I am thrilled knowing I have many more Jack Reacher novels to go before being completely caught up! I highly recommend Killing Floor to fans of edge-of-your-seat, suspenseful mystery novels. The most recent novels by Lee Child include 61 Hours (2010) and Worth Dying For (2010), with The Affair due to release later this year in October 2011.