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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