I read the first one. Good to know I’m covered. 
The spoiler is accurate. Are you sure you haven’t read it?
I think my favorite thing about them (and don’t get me wrong, they are a guilty pleasure) is that you spend a few hundred pages with the guy, then you get to the climactic final battle and he just straight up kills the bad guy in the most routine way possible: runs him over, throws him out of a helicopter, breaks his neck, stabs him, shoots him…
…it’s like watching Deathly Hallows Part 2 and at the climax Harry Potter just picks up a fireplace poker and beats Voldemort to death with it. Roll Credits.
Everybody always suggests Travis Mcgee. I’ve tried, but the newest one was written in 1984. It’s like picking up a Spencer novel only to discover he’s up against a group of radical feminists and the Black Panthers. It’s so outside my experience I have a hard time getting into it.
I binge-read about the first four or five, and binge reading does them no favor. I finally just stopped because they were all so predictable. If it was a book a year, you can sort of get the predictability out of your system.
StG
Are they any more formulaic than those of the “child psychologist with the gay cop friend” books? I read a bunch of them for some reason, but can’t remember the protagonist or the author.
I don’t know what these (“Jack Reacher” novels) are. Is this like reading all the John Grisham books even if they get progressively stupider and more pseudo-political? Or like reading historical romances that are quite rather educational but you’re still skimming for the first mention of “throbbing” or “burgeoning” or “budding” or “manhood” or “maidenhead” or any/all of those combined? Or like reading all the Mary Higgins Clark books even if you figured out in 1997 that she has only three plots with different character names?
cough
If you relate to all I mentioned above, then go nuts with Elmore Leonard. I had to stop reading him because I felt like I would have to fast or confess to my priest afterwards. The stories aren’t *that *great, but they’re like eating mounds of peanut brittle on Christmas after you’re already stuffed on turkey and mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. You want more, but you don’t know exactly why, and it’s just not hitting the dopamine centers just right. SO you either keep going, or move on to something else, with a good will.
We could start a parody.
Jack Reacher lives on a liquid only diet. That way he is never caught with his pants down if, by some absurdly stretch of the imagination and/or plot, he needs to react instantly. In other words, Jack Reacher never shits, which is a problem, because as you know he is driven to rip the head off and shit in the necks of bad guys doing bad things.
Your turn…
You are trying to parody a parody. It’s a meta-parody. It’s too much for me. Besides, I used all my good meta-parody years ago on another Jack…Jack Bauer.
Read John Sanford’s Prey series. He’s a cop who still manages to kill at east a couple of times per ook.
Is he related to Terry Pratchett’s librarian?
I bought “Make Me” at the supermarket in hardcover (Kroger had it marked down and I succumbed).
Beyond Superman-kills-the-bad-guys and Reacher-screws-the-hot-law-enforcement/military-babe (these are NOT spoilers, they are constants), there are other plot devices that are familiar from previous novels. And Child continues to be clueless about America’s geography and highway system. Regardless of where you are in Oklahoma, I don’t see how it’s possible to be on a decent road and still have a three-hour drive to the nearest Interstate.The Reacher books are still entertaining, but I may just pretend the series has stopped, and then a few years from now, break down and check out the new ones from the library.
Apparently he can also go for days without peeing, which is a neat trick, considering that he drinks gallons of coffee a day.
Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series. I think the gay cop is named Milo.
All the series in the the mystery/thriller genre are formulaic. The Reacher books go beyond that, into repetition. For instance, in every story, the big baddie sends two guys to scare off Reacher. The two thugs are always dressed the same (?), are the same height and weight, and have identical haircuts. Ex-military, probably, they had the look. Getting a little older, a little slower and a little softer. Jack easily dispatches them with a series of economical but lethal kicks and punches. Because he has hands the size of dinner plates ( or was it catchers mitts?) etc. etc…
Whoops, meant to quote Son of Rich’s post.