Tuesday, May 8, 2018

The Midnight Line

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher is on a bus to somewhere. During a pit stop he wanders over to the local pawnshop for a look-around and sees a West Point class ring. Something "must be wrong" so he pursues the origin story of this ring. His pursuit takes him to Wyoming and the local black market opioid pipeline, DEA investigations, and a purple heart earning veteran. He works with a Chicago private detective, his cute-young-thing client, and unknowingly a local persistent police officer to find the girl and shut down the regional crime boss. And then gets back on a bus to somewhere. Maybe for the first time in this series, I feel like Child has phoned it in. Reacher has become a caricature of himself, without any real effort at either exploring the psychological depths or motivations of the man. Granted, it has been sparse throughout, but never before have I noted the vacancy of the characters. Being as this is the latest publication, I can only hope this is an aberation and not the new normal.


2 stars (out of 4)

No comments:

Post a Comment