Jack Reacher travels back to his old MP unit to meet its new commander, mainly because he was intrigued by the sound of her voice on the telephone. Once there, he finds that she's been locked up, and he is being brought back on active duty so he can answer to a homicide charge and paternity suit. As always, nothing is quite as it seems, forcing Jack has to peel back layer after layer to get to the truth. All while staying one step ahead of the law, drug dealers, and the Army.

It was not the best Jack Reacher novel I've ever read but it was more than above average. The pacing is brilliant, the plot is deliciously convoluted and innovative. I will say that the resolution of the story is a bit unsatisfying, but it's nothing that Jack Reacher fans can't live with. ( )

At the end of “61 Hours” (#14) Jack Reacher decides he wants to go to Washington DC to meet Major Susan Turner, commanding officer of his former Military Police unit to whom he spoke on the phone during that book. The last few novels have had Reacher heading towards the Major to take her out to dinner. He's been diverted but he's finally made it. He arrives in Virginia and discovers she's no longer the commanding officer anymore. He's told that she's been reassigned to Afghanistan, but quickly finds out that she's actually been arrested on bribery charges.

Reacher also finds out he's a wanted man, accused of a homicide sixteen years earlier when he was in the army. He's also told that he is defendant in a paternity suit brought by a woman of whom he has no recollection. He is then recalled to the Army pending his trial. Two men follow him to his motel and strongly encourage him to head back out on the road where he will be out of the Army's reach. You know Reacher is not going to take that kind of advice......

We head out for a cross country chase involving lawyers, bad guys and the mysterious Romeo and Juliet. Like almost every Jack Reacher novel there's non-stop action, violence and some really humorous interplay between all the main characters. I really enjoyed Susan Turner. She's different enough from Reacher to make her stimulating and similar enough to make their mutual attraction believable.

You know what you get with a Jack Reacher novel...an interesting chase filled with some improbable fight scenes. Reacher is unafraid of being outnumbered in a fight and in one confrontation he even says he'll fight two of them with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded. Some of the confrontations are really humorous but the goal is always for Reacher to stay ahead of the law and how he can clear both he and Susan of the crimes they are accused of.

I thought the last book “A Wanted Man” was one of the worst books of the Reacher series and was convinced Lee Child was losing interest in writing about him. There are several improbable plot lines here but I'm still on board for any future Reacher adventures and enjoyed this much more than the last couple. After all, you didn't think you were picking up Shakespeare when you pick up a Jack Reacher adventure did you? ( )

Oh how I like guilty pleasure books.

Even if I don't think it is the same thing, it must be what it feel like when women who like vampire romance books feel like when they read yet another supernatural being falling in love with a mortal, blah blah blah.

For Lee Child, it is a mystery, Jack Reacher in trouble. He wouldn't know what's going on, as the readers shouldn't know what's going on.

The clues are here and there.

And we are get into the mind and "body" of Reacher. If he couldn't think it through, it beat it out of someone.

This time, the breaking fingers to extract wallet is pretty good. I'm against using of actual violence. But if it is fiction, go ahead and do it, as it is the bad guys that would do harm anyway. So, breaking fingers is like harm reduction.


Like the fast moving of action. There got to be a woman in it, or who would have sex with Jack.

I wouldn't mind Jack Reacher to be a bisexual. It would be fun to have him sleep with a guy.

But that would be too far out of the comfort zone for the current readers, who equate macho with heterosexuality.

I'm only a bit more than half way through the book, and I like it. I stop playing games online, stop watching TV, even stop using my computer just to sit and read last night.

Should do this more often.

A 5 stars kind of guilty pleasure.


So why were they in trouble? Who want them out of the way?

Not so much hand to hand combat in this one.

The interesting part is the possibility of having a child in one of his sexual encounters. Reacher would have remembered all the women he slept with, but he had been young and drunk before, so things could happen that he wouldn't remember at all.

Like the way the writer play with the idea. I don't think Reacher is against the idea of having a child. He was getting used to the idea of having a child. Just not actively getting one himself by the conventional means.

Overall, a good read. Another 5 stars. Plus a bonus on short story of Reacher as a young man, teenager.

Good one. ( )