IN TOO DEEP

4 stars out of 5

Let me say at the outset that I've loved Jack Reacher for years (in the books, I hasten to add, of which this is the 29th). This one is not my favorite - maybe by half a country mile - but I stayed up past my bedtime to polish it off nonetheless.

Mostly, I guess, I just didn't warm up to any of the overabundance of characters - probably because it was a little hard to tell the good guys and gals from the bad. And for some reason, Reacher himself seemed a little "off" - but then, if I'd lost a chunk of my recent memory on top of trying to do my usual super-human feats with a broken wrist, I guess I'd be a little cranky as well. The wrist, in fact, is where it begins; Reacher wakes up tethered to a table in an unknown location. In typical Reacher fashion, he manages to get free - but he has no recollection of how he got to be where he is. So when a man arrives and shows him he's survived a car accident in the Ozarks during which an FBI agent was killed, Reacher decides, at least for the time being, to believe him.

But of course, not everyone is who they claim to be, and chapter perspective shifts let readers in on what's going on behind Reacher's back. Along the way, Reacher meets up with a disgraced female agent who's on the trail of the man she claims murdered her father - who, as it turns out, is directly connected to characters who are causing headaches for Reacher as well. Joining forces, then, is a no-brainer - especially since she's a computer whiz while Reacher remains a troglodyte when it comes to technology (although it amazes me how much he knows about it even though he doesn't even own a cell phone).

Needless to say, what they learn along the way turns out to be a huge threat to the American way of life, and as expected, saving our skins depends on Reacher learning the truth before the other side does. The fun - and action - is in the getting there, and trust me, there's plenty of it from start to finish. Another good installment, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy.

In Too Deep by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Delacorte Press, October 2024); 328 pp.

THE SECRET

4 stars out of 5

This book, the 28th in the Jack Reacher series, is set in the late 1990s and takes readers back to his days in the military. As might be expected, he's a little less the maverick and loner we've come to know and love; even his physical prowess is toned down a bit. What we do see, though, is some of what shaped what he became in more recent books as told in an enjoyable, engrossing story.

Actually, there are two threads; as part of his regular assignment as Military Police Officer at the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, Reacher is dealing with stolen gun parts and trying to track down not only who's behind the theft but where they're ending up. Just as he's making progress, though, he gets pulled off to serve as the Army's representative on a task force looking into the presumed murder of a man who was involved in a top-secret government research project in India 20-plus years ago. Prior to that, eight other people related to that project have bitten the dust, although in ways that didn't attract suspicion till now. Since the task force was formed at the behest of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, time is of the essence and failure isn't an option.

The trick, if there is one, is to explore the connections among all the victims, determine whether there could be more victims to come (and if so, find ways to protect them), and, ultimately, find out who's doing the killing. Given all the secrecy surrounding the project and all the years that have intervened, that's no small job. It gets even more complicated as the task force's worst fears come to fruition. Readers meanwhile get treated to a behind-the-scenes look at everyone involved, so they know more than Reacher does almost every step of the way except near the end, when Reacher beats us all to it (well, almost - I correctly guessed it fairly early on). Needless to say, there's no shortage of Reacher tough-guy action, though as I mentioned earlier, it's not as full-on as in later books.

All told, it's another attention-holding adventure that's easy to read (good thing, since I really wanted to get through it in one sitting; didn't quite make it). Many thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy. 

The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Delacorte Press, October 2023); 304 pp.

NO PLAN B

4.5 stars out of 5

Every loyal reader of this series knows nobody messes with Jack Reacher - he can take down half a dozen very big, very angry men in the blink of an eye. In this one, he proves he can give MacGyver a run for his skills as well.
 

The plot has four "legs," if you will - and that made it a little tough for me to follow, at least for the first half or so of the book, just because of the number of characters and switchbacks from one to the other. There's a guy who wants revenge, another looking for a long-lost someone, some very bad guys who don't want to get caught doing what they're doing and, of course, raison d'etre that puts Reacher, at first inadvertently and then intentionally, in the middle of the whole mess.

The whole thing begins as Reacher sees a man throw a woman under the bus - quite literally - after which he steals her purse and runs. Something Reacher saw seems to have triggered feelings of ill will, so to speak, from some folks who would rather it not be seen - what was there threatens the good thing they want to keep going. Reacher, doing his Reacher thing, smells a rat (and we all know he doesn't react well to threats), so he vows to get to the bottom of it even if it takes him halfway across the country. While this is going on, those other folks begin to converge at the same place - the Minerva Correctional Facility in Winson, Mississippi.

The details, of course, I can't reveal, except to say there's never a dull moment; all points converge at the end, and readers learn what happens to all the people who started off as strangers but end up as, well, you'll have to read it for yourself to find that out. It's fast-paced, fun and another adventure I'm sure Reacher fans will enjoy. I heartily thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy. Well done!

No Plan B by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Delacorte Press, October 2022); 368 pp.

THE SENTINEL

3.5 stars out of 5

I'm a longtime fan of the Jack Reacher series - heck, I've even forgiven the 2012 movie that cast diminutive Tom Cruise as Goliath-sized Reacher. Based on his physical stature alone, it wasn't a good fit.

And this book isn't the best fit for the series, either. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be contrived; it seemed as if the intent was to identify a couple of in-the-news hot topics and then try to fabricate a story around them. The dialog seemed forced as well; granted, Reacher is a loner and a man of few words - and that's true here, in spots. But in others, he spouts lengthy and intricate explanations of computer functions which, coming from a guy who needs help operating a smartphone, just didn't quite, well, ring true. Time will tell, I guess, if that's the result of the author's collaboration with his younger brother Andrew to write this book (the person he's chosen to carry on the Reacher series in the not-too-distant future).

All that aside, it's an intriguing story that held my interest throughout - but then, I admit to having a computer geek side. Hiking out of Nashville to anywhere else, Reacher gets a lift from a guy who's headed in that direction - namely, to a much smaller town in Tennessee. Not long after he's dropped off, Reacher's killer senses kick in and he saves local guy Rusty Rutherford from an apparent kidnapping. Not that he'll be thanked anytime soon, mind you; Rusty is despised by just about everyone for the role they think he played in the recent disastrous crash of all the town's computer systems and phones. 

Rusty, though, insists he's totally innocent; in fact, he was trying to keep that from happening. Now a pariah and, more importantly, out of a job, he and a former FBI friend are hoping to salvage a program they wrote to protect the town computers that could make them very wealthy. For his part, Reacher takes pity on the two (plus he figures the would-be kidnappers aren't likely to stop at a single attempt) and agrees to stick around for a bit.

From there on, the plot gets pretty complicated - even to the computer geek side of my brain. There are Russians who may not be Russians, undercover FBI agents and physical attacks from all corners of the town - leading to the usual blowout fights in which Reacher is outnumbered and must reach to new levels of his considerable pugilistic abilities to survive. Confusion over who's who and what's where leads Reacher down a back alley (or two or five) until near the end, when it's time to put up or forever be shut up. 

Conclusion: Fast-paced and action-filled, this may not be the best entry in the Reacher series, but it's still Reacher and anything Reacher is still worth reading. Bring on the next one!

The Sentinel by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Delacorte Press, October 2020); 352 pp.