Bad Luck and Trouble (Jack Reacher) | 
 enlarge | Author: Lee Child
Creator: Dick Hill
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $44.95
Buy Used: $13.20
You Save: $31.75 (71%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  168 reviews
Sales Rank: 114344
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 10
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6 x 4.7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0739357263
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780739357262
ASIN: 0739357263
Publication Date: May 15, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: 10 cd's included and two have light scratches. Box has some wear. Guaranteed. Will ship immediately with great care.
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Amazon.com
Ex-military cop Jack Reacher is the perfect antihero--tough as nails, but with a brain and a conscience to match. He's able to see what most miss and is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Each book in Lee Child's smart, addictive series (The New York Times has referred to it as "pure escapist gold") follows the wandering warrior on a new adventure, making it easy to start with any book, including his latest gem, Bad Luck and Trouble. However, be forewarned...once you meet Jack Reacher, you'll be hooked, so be prepared to stock up on the series. --Daphne Durham
Who Is Jack Reacher? A Video from Lee Child
Watch the video |
A Note from Lee Child
 Two years ago I was on a book tour, promoting that year's new Jack Reacher novel, One Shot. One particular night, the event was held in a small town outside of Chicago. The date was June 21st. As I was giving my talk and answering questions and signing books, that date was nagging away at the back of my mind. I knew it had some significance. I started panicking--had I forgotten my anniversary? No, that's in August. My wife's birthday? No, that's in January. My own birthday? No, that's in October.
Then suddenly I remembered--it was ten years to the day since I had been fired from my previous job. That was why and how I had become a writer. That night in Illinois was a ten-year anniversary of a different sort, somewhat bittersweet.
And ten is a nice round number. So I started thinking about my old colleagues. My workmates, my buddies. We had been through a lot together. I started to wonder where they all were now. What were they doing? Were they doing well, or struggling? Were they happy? What did they look like now? Pretty soon I was into full-on nostalgia mode. Ten-year anniversaries can do that to a person. I think we all share those kind of feelings, about high school, or college, or old jobs we've quit, or old towns we've moved away from.
So I decided to make this year's Jack Reacher book about a reunion. I decided to throw him back among a bunch of old colleagues that he hadn't seen for ten years, people that he loved fiercely and respected deeply. Regular Reacher readers will know that he's a pretty self-confident guy, but I wanted him to wobble just a little this time, to compare his choices with theirs, to measure himself against them.
The renewed get-together isn't Reacher's own choice, though. And it's not a standard-issue reunion, either. Something very bad has happened, and one of his old team-members from the army contacts him, by an ingenious method (it's hard to track Reacher down). She gives him the bad news, and asks him to do something about it. He says, "Of course I'll do something about it."
"No," his friend says. "I mean, I want you to put the old unit back together."
It's an irresistible invitation. Wouldn't we all like to do that, sometimes? --Lee Child
Secrets of the Series: A Q&A with Lee Child
Q: Why do you think readers keep coming back to your novels?
A: Two words: Jack Reacher. Reacher is a drifter and a loner with a strong sense of justice. He shows up, he acts, he moves on. He's the type of hero who has a long literary history. Robin Hood, the Lone Ranger, Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings, Jack Reacher--they're all part of the same heroic family. Reacher just ratchets it up a notch. Maybe more than a notch. Why is he so appealing? Most often people say to me it's his sense of justice; he will do the right thing. Even though there is no reward in it for him, even though there is often a high cost to be paid by him, he will always try to do the right thing and people find that reassuring in today's world when not too many people are doing the right thing.
Q: Jack Reacher gets compared to James Bond, Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne, each of whom now has a "face." In a movie, which actor do you think could fill Reacher's shoes?
A: That's the toughest question. The thing about Reacher is he's huge; he's 6'5" tall and about 250 pounds. There aren't any actors that size--actors tend to be small. So we aren't going to find a physical facsimile for Reacher because there aren't any. We have to find someone who is capable of looking big on the screen. Many people have said to me a young Clint Eastwood would have been perfect--we need someone like that who has the vibe of a big intimidating man. Hopefully there will be somebody available like that. It's also a question of finding somebody ready to sign up for more than one movie. They want to make a franchise, minimum of three, and that makes it a little bit harder.
Q: What research is involved in writing one of your stories?
A: My research is all kind of backwards. I don't go to the public library for three months and take notes in advance; instead my best research is by remembering and adapting. I read, travel, and talk to people just for the fun of it, filing away these interesting little snippets to the back of my mind and eventually they float to the surface and get used. The problem is, I approach writing the book with the same excitement and impatience that I hope the reader is going to feel about reading it. But even so, I need a certain measure of technical intrigue in the story. There is specific research I have to do as I go along, anything that's a small detail; a car, a gun, a type of bullet. I will check that out at the time. But, that's what I call the detail--the broad stuff is the stuff I already know.
Meet Jack Reacher 
The Killing Floor | 
Die Trying | 
Tripwire | 
Running Blind | 
Echo Burning |
Without Fail | 
Persuader | 
The Enemy | 
One Shot | 
The Hard Way |
Product Description
From a helicopter high above the empty California desert, a man is sent free-falling into the night…. In Chicago, a woman learns that an elite team of ex–army investigators is being hunted down one by one.... And on the streets of Portland, Jack Reacher—soldier, cop, hero—is pulled out of his wandering life by a code that few other people could understand. From the first shocking scenes in Lee Child’s explosive new novel, Jack Reacher is plunged like a knife into the heart of a conspiracy that is killing old friends…and is on its way to something even worse.
A decade postmilitary, Reacher has an ATM card and the clothes on his back—no phone, no ties, and no address. But now a woman from his old unit has done the impossible. From Chicago, Frances Neagley finds Reacher, using a signal only the eight members of their elite team of army investigators would know. She tells him a terrifying story—about the brutal death of a man they both served with. Soon Reacher is reuniting with the survivors of his old team, scrambling to raise the living, bury the dead, and connect the dots in a mystery that is growing darker by the day. The deeper they dig, the more they don’t know: about two other comrades who have suddenly gone missing—and a trail that leads into the neon of Vegas and the darkness of international terrorism.
For now, Reacher can only react. To every sound. Every suspicion. Every scent and every moment. Then Reacher will trust the people he once trusted with his life—and take this thing all the way to the end. Because in a world of bad luck and trouble, when someone targets Jack Reacher and his team, they’d better be ready for what comes right back at them…
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 163 more reviews...
Lots of twist and turns July 18, 2008
I've read some of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels. I would say that this novel might be his best. I thought the book had every thing that a great suspense novel should have: a great plot, realistic characters, suspense and lots of twist and turns. If you enjoy the Reacher series I'd recommend this book.
Good As Usual! July 12, 2008
As mentioned, this was pretty good, but I kept hoping for a little more action. That being said, I still enjoyed, especially the payback. Reacher and company work well together. Hope to see a return by the others in a future novel.
 Bad Luck and Trouble July 12, 2008
As always fantastic! He is one of the few writers these days that are consistant, every book is the same as the last, only better, keep it up
Interesting perspective - there is a Jack in "TEAM" July 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Titling the book, "Bad Luck and Trouble" works from a Jack Reacher perspective. Reacher's always got some of the first and lots of the second. This time, Reacher gets to display some skills from his past that Child's readers have never really seen before - his ability to lead, specifically a military team.
As the book opens, there's plenty of ...bad luck and trouble.... for Calvin Franz, who is dumped from a Bell Helicopter down into the desert floor. Scratch Calvin's character. Later, we learn that Calvin was one of 8 of hero Jack Reacher's old military police outfit.
Reacher is author Lee Child's relentless drifter hero, and this is Child's 11th tale of Reacher's life after he leaves a career as a military hero. Reacher is sort of a magnet for violence and trouble as he tours around the United States, essentially homeless, with few possessions, and liking it that way. Before he learns about Calvin, Reacher is leaving Portland, Oregon, on a bus with essentially no plans.
Enter, in a round about way, Frances Neagley, a female loner who was once a member of Reacher's troup, and is today a very successful private intelligence operative. Neagley tells Reacher of Calvin's death, and together they discover that 3 other members of the team are also missing. They reach out and assemble the remaining members of the team to unravel and avenge the murder(s). Southern California becomes a brutal field for them to some government shenanigans and international terrorism.
Here, Reacher relies more on intellect than his penchant and talent for violence and death. There is a lot of tough banter in the book, and the same sly and ironic humor that Child has peppered the series with. Ultimately, the mystery and the action are more than satisfying, and the team disbands... Reacher is now left to go it alone again.
Don't misunderstand, there is plenty of violence in the book, and there are also some situations that make you question Reacher's integrity - a new, and not necessarily welcome surprise to the reader.
Still and all, "Bad Luck and Trouble" is a great installment in the series, gives good new dimension for the hero, and a book that can be read as a stand alone. It's always a possibility that Child will resurrect the troop, or at least one or two of the characters in future offerings as well.
Can't Resist Reacher July 3, 2008
Lee Child's Jack Reacher is SO unreal, so much of a caricature, that only a moron would enjoy reading about him, right? Wrong. There's something irrestible about Jack Reacher -- maybe it's the machismo so pathetically absent in much of our society. The Reacher books are not terribly nuanced -- it's pretty black and white. The bad guys are terrible; the good guys, pretty good. So, you read Lee Child just to escape for a while into a world where the good guys win, instead of losing, as the media tends to portray things. But, they tell me that in his latest book, "Nothing to Lose" Child goes off the deep end and gets political. That would be a pity. He'll lose me as a reader if that's the case. I read Child for escape, not indoctrination.
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