One Shot

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

This book opens with a setup of a seemingly random sniper shooting in a public square somewhere in central Indiana. The police are on the scene quickly, find the forensic clues and arrest a suspect within a few hours. Their physical evidence is indisputable. The suspect only says "You got the wrong man" and "Get me Jack Reacher". Then promptly gets beat up in jail and put into a coma. But Jack Reacher is already on his way, having seen the news of the event and having prior history with the suspect. Specifically, he had caught him having completed the near exact shooting spree over 14 years early as an army Sniper in Kuwait City. So Reacher came into town to make sure this guy was convicted for good. Begin mystery...

Just as a side note, I know that these are not great literature, but I think Lee Child knows this too. And still he has a way of communicating in a fun way. This sample particularly highlighted for me why I enjoy this writing style

He had more coffee and an English muffin filled with a round piece of ham and something that might have once been egg, first dried and powdered and then reconstituted. His threshold of culinary acceptability was very low, but right then he felt he might be pushing at the bottom edge of his personal envelope.

Brilliant. This was also the book that was the basis for the film Jack Reacher. I had not read any of the Reacher novels then, but having read many now, how did Tom Cruise get cast? Not even close.

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Killing Floor

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

The first Reacher novel, Jack is a new civilian and starting his new life as a drifter. He is traveling to Margrave, Georgia on a lark. His brother had sent him a cryptic question asking whether Blind Blake (a blue musician) had actually died in Margrave. With nothing else to do, Reacher goes to look around. But he is instantly arrested on arrival for murder. The tip from his brother (who works at the US Treasury Department) puts Reacher in the middle of a major counterfeiting ring. So he takes care of it.

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61 Hours

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

The first in a what turns out to be a four novel set. 61 hours refers to a countdown from the beginning of a novel to something that will happen. Reacher is hitching on a bus through South Dakota that wrecks in a storm and finds himself stranded in a local town. He gets involved with the police, who are adjusting to a new Federal Prison, and trying to evict a meth-dealing biker gang from squatting on an old military installation. In particular, this book is a bit different because Reacher starts out with a positive relationship with the local police. Instead of adversarial, they immediately see his skills as being useful to their particular problems and he helps with a couple of investigations along the way. He also makes contact (for the first time since his discharge) with the new CO of his old MP unit as he is trying to uncover information about the mystery military installation. This contact starts the thread of the next four novels of Reacher traveling to Virginia to meet this officer. Of course, nothing in the town is quite as it seems at first glance, and in typical Lee Child fashion, nothing is quite as surprising to the reader as it is to the characters. Still fun.

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The Affair

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

This entire novel is a flashback to Reacher's final case in his life as an MP. A murder takes place in a sleepy Mississippi town adjacent to Fort Kelham. An investigator is sent to the military base, and Reacher is sent to the town to run a joint investigation. This is the beginning of his exploration of what life would be like as a civilian, what he appreciates about life, and what annoys him. Some of this is clearly written as a necessary setup for the man that Reacher has developed into over the course of many novels, but overall provides subtle character support for the "future" Reacher.

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Tripwire

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher is working in south Florida, trying to earn some money and it is not too long after his departure from the service. When a detective comes looking for him, he plays coy, and when that detective comes up dead, and a couple of goons are also looking for him, Reacher does Reacher. He travels to New York, gets reconnected with an old crush, and then gets mixed up in a loan sharking business that is clearly hurting someone military (or Reacher wouldn't be involved). Pieces of the Reacher are shown that become standard fare later, and the development of the person are definitely worked through.

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Bad Luck and Trouble

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher is in the Northwest when he gets a call from one of his former team members to meet him in California. The old gang is getting together. It is nearly a decade since he left the Army and his unit of MP Special Investigators. But that unit was a tight knit group who developed trust over their two years of working together. This novel is telling of a present day crisis, but really it gives more background on Reachers history with the 110th MP and who he is than a flashback novel would. We see the mutual respect of each of his team for him and for each other. We see the old habits come back as they work together, picking up as if the decade hadn't passed. What brings the group together, unfortunately, is the murder of some of their unit. So the rest of the unit comes in (or is pulled in) to investigate. No one messes with the Special Investigators. And of course, add in a little bit of international terrorism in the post 9/11 world to keep things interesting.

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Never Go Back

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

The end of a 4 novel story arc (that I am apparently reading backwards). Reacher reaches Virginia and goes to meet up with Susan Turner (because he liked her voice on the phone) who is an MP in his former job. But she is missing. And then fired. And then he is conscripted. And accused of murder. By this point in his civilian career, Reacher is no longer interested in being in the military. But he hangs around until he can figure out what is going on...

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The Hard Way

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher is sitting at a street table at a NY city coffee shop. He sees a guy cross the street, get in a car and drive away. An hour later a guy comes in to ask questions about what he saw. Now he is involved in a kidnap/ransom for a leader of a black-ops paramilitary organization. Reacher needs to find the truth of what is going on. With all the former military (US and British) on site, who can he trust, what is the purpose of this ultra-secretive group, and why does Reacher feel like he has to stick around to help. The helpless girl of course. It is the leaders wife and daughter who are kidnapped and something doesn't seem right. And Reacher gets his customary hot,former FBI, detective assistant to covertly work the case with him. The hard way of the title refers to the investigative method that is needed in this case. No big breaks, no electronic or computer solutions to generate them. So every little bit of information or clue seems to be dug out of hard work and effort, piecing things together one bit at a time. Old School.

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Persuader

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher is sitting at a coffee shop. Drinking coffee. How could this turn into anything, right? Well, a few minutes later a couple ex-special forces types come into the shop to ask Reacher a few questions about what he saw. He goes with them, meets the boss, gets hired as security (after showing that the current security guys missed everything). The setting is that the boss's son was kidnapped and ransom is demanded. Reacher is interested in "helping out" since he realized that the boss is a big time gun runner with ties to another gun runner that Reacher has a grudge against. So he must solve the kidnapping crime, save the boy of the gun runner to get in with him and have a shot at taking down a bigger gun runner. No problem.

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Night School

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Set back in time when Reacher is still an MP, he is reassigned to attend a night school class, along with an FBI agent and CIA analyst. Which means a highly sensitive, highly secretive, joint agency operation. This time the task is to track down a terrorist cell that is buying something for $100 million. To much for regular munitions, too little for WMD's. No worries, Reacher is on the case. He works with his assigned partners... sort of. Mostly he goes off on his own and solves the thing on his own, taking out some alt-right Euro's along the way. Classic Reacher.

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Past Tense

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher stops off at a small town that has some family history (his dad may have lived there as a child). It so happens that near this small town is an aspiring business where rich people are able to pay lots of money to bow-hunt other people. The hunted (of course) are unwilling. Reacher gets involved in a round about way, so that it almost seems like his involvement is ancillary to main story of him discovering his past. The hunted that he helps are just resilient enough to make you wonder if they needed Reacher at all. But he helps, none-the-less, setting everyone straight and reinforcing that while interested in history, he doesn't really care about or need it. On to the next small town...


2 stars (out of 4)

Without Fail

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher is tracked down by a Treasury agent who new his brother. She is looking for an "outside consultant" to work up some opposition research on how to assassinate the Vice President. She thinks there is a mole in the department so only a trusted outsider will be able to help. Reacher enlists Neagley to help him out and they begin the unraveling of threat letters, assassination proof of access, and finding the mole. All in a days work, that somehow also allows time for Reacher and Neagley to process the recent death of his brother Joe.

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The Enemy

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

In 1989, an Army general is found dead in a seedy hotel, and Reacher is the MP investigating his death. When the general's briefcase is discovered to be missing, his wife discovered to be dead, and Reacher finds an unnecessary force complaint filed against him, something is up. As the investigation proceeds, there are special forces generals and navy admirals, and politicians all jockeying to protect their budgets and influence in the new post-cold-war world. Reacher (of course) gets to the bottom of things.

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Gone Tomorrow

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher is on a NY subway in the middle of the night when he notices something strange. A woman riding in his car hits all 11 markers on the Israeli suicide bomber checklist. When Reacher goes to confront her, she kills herself. So not a suicide bomber. But true to form, Reacher is intrigued, and then drawn into a political corruption/national security drama that pits him against the local NYPD, the FBI, DIA, a US Senator and a local Al Qaeda cell. Another day at the office.

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Echo Burning

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher is picked up by a woman who needs help in southwest Texas. He is convinced that she is a victim of abuse, and the offending husband is getting out of jail next week, having served his IRS tax evasion time. Overlay this with the south Texas, white v. mexican cultural conflict, and throw in a couple of assassins. Perfect. As always, fun to read, not everything is as it seems (which is exactly what you expect), and Reacher comes out none the worse. This is maybe a bit more interesting as an early book in the series in that it is the first book that Reacher has truly embraced his vagrancy.

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Make Me

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

This is a new release (2015) and Reacher is the itinerant wanderer. He happens by a small grain town with one train stop and is intrigued by a couple of locals who seem to be looking to meet someone. Intrigue is all it takes to get him to stick around for a couple days, expecially when as he sticks around, he is asked to leave. Short answer - "No". One thing leads to another and Reacher's unofficial investigation leads to the discovery of a couple farmers running an illicit video business. A little bit of subtlety, a little bit of brute force, a little bit of patience. Classic Reacher.

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Die Trying

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

This is early Reacher, recently out of the army. He bumps into a woman on a crutch as she comes out of a dry cleaning place, setting in motion his involvement in a cross-country, white supremacist secession/kidnapping plot that involves the FBI and Military at the highest level. Reacher is his typical chivalrist self as he protects the girl and effectively prevents civil war all on his own. And in the end, just disappears into the sunset. I like how he is still struggling with who he is post-army, but never questions his value set, and responsibility to that value set.

And now having read this, I have completed all 22 Reacher novels. Time to look for a new series that can be tossed off when I need a quick read.

3 stars (out of 4)

A Wanted Man

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Still on his way to Virginia to see Susan Turner, Reacher is hitchhiking through Nebraska. He is picked up by a couple guys and a girl, but something is strange. Turns out the two guys carjacked the woman after a brutal murder. And of course it is more complicated than that. The murder that took place is on the radar of the anti-terrorist task force at the FBI, and Reacher is a suspect since he was in the car. So he does his thing and helps in the only way he knows how.

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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)

Nothing to Lose

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher is traveling through Colorado, gets a ride to Hope, and on a whim decided to walk on to Despair. Of course they have to go together. He proceeds to get run out of town, for no reason. And this gets him curious, and of course it leads to a conspiracy/crime/military connected mystery. He makes friends with a local cop from Hope and they work together on another short term relationship. There is a bit of religious fervor here and Reacher makes an interesting comment "We are all atheists. You don't believe in Zeus, or Ra, or 1000 other gods. Why does it bug you that I don't believe in 1001?"

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