Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

Summary and Reviews of Tripwire by Lee Child

Tripwire by Lee Child

Tripwire

by Lee Child
  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • First Published:
  • Jul 1, 1999, 343 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jun 2000, 432 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

Lee Child confirms his early acclaim with this tale, as swift and stylish as any suspense novel being written today.

On the publication of Lee Child's debut novel, the multiple award-winning Killing Floor, critics nationwide marked its success. "Fascinating" (The New York Times), "riveting" (Boston Sunday Globe), "irresistible" (People), "will blow you away" (The Philadelphia Inquirer), they hailed. Last year's Die Trying inspired even more: "a suspense writer to be reckoned with" (Chicago Tribune) and "[Reacher is] one of the more fully realized and intelligently resourceful heroes to come along in years" (Rocky Mountain News).

In Tripwire, Reacher is settling into lazy Key West when his life is interrupted by a stranger who comes looking for him. When the stranger turns up beaten to death in the Old Town cemetery--fingertips removed--Reacher knows whomever the man was working for is not a friend. Reacher follows the trail to New York, where he confronts the people who dispatched the dead man: an elderly couple still mourning an all-American son lost in Vietnam; an alluring and intelligent woman from Reacher's own haunted past; and at the center of the web, an opponent more vicious than any he's ever faced.

Lee Child confirms his early acclaim with this new tale, as swift and stylish as any suspense novel being written today.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

The Denver Post - Robin Vidimos.
Tripwire is fast-paced and plausible, a combination that pulls the reader in and holds through the duration of the tale. The race between Reacher and Hobie is an attention-grabbing contest of both wits and time. The book includes a bang-up finale, which makes the reader sit back and gasp with both wonder and understanding.

Booklist
The third entry in the Reacher series is a solid thriller that brings to mind the knight-errant adventures of John D. McDonald's Travis McGee. Edgy, exciting reading.

Booklist
The third entry in the Reacher series is a solid thriller that brings to mind the knight-errant adventures of John D. McDonald's Travis McGee. Edgy, exciting reading.

Kirkus Reviews
Unabashedly mindless but fun Reacher swashbuckles with the best of them.

Kirkus Reviews
Unabashedly mindless but fun Reacher swashbuckles with the best of them.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Tripwire, try these:

  • Hard Rain jacket

    Hard Rain

    by Barry Eisler

    Published 2004

    About this book

    More by this author

    Rain must pursue his most dangerous quarry yet through the crosshairs of the CIA and the Japanese mafia, where the differences between friend and foe and truth and deceit are as murky as the rain-slicked streets of Tokyo.

  • Tropic of Night jacket

    Tropic of Night

    by Michael Gruber

    Published 2004

    About this book

    More by this author

    This intricate thriller ignites in the very first chapter as anthropologist heroine Jane Doe employs the theories of Claude Levi-Strauss, quotes W. H. Auden, kills a drunken woman using advanced aikido techniques and rescues an abused child whom she raises as her own.

We have 4 read-alikes for Tripwire, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Lee Child
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Bluest Eye
    by Toni Morrison
    The story of a black girl in America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others. First published 1970; won the 1993 Nobel Prize.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Beast of the North Woods
    by Annelise Ryan

    When a local fisherman is mauled to death, it seems like the only possible cause is a mythical creature.

  • Book Jacket

    Three Days in June
    by Anne Tyler

    A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

  • Book Jacket

    Harlem Rhapsody
    by Victoria Christopher Murray

    The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance.

Who Said...

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

D to T N

and be entered to win..