If you have been following me from the beginning, you know that I love Jack Reacher.  I love characters with a set of beliefs and a code of behavior. I also love people who do right by the oppressed, weak, and downtrodden.  Reacher is my man. In this latest book, Child has gotten more aggressive with Reacher frequently using a gun and driving a car. These are both relatively new for Reacher, but as readers, we need to see our favorite characters evolve just as we do or the characters get stale.  Child keeps Reacher fresh and exciting with each new adventure.   

The story begins with Reacher on a bus watching a fellow rider figure out how to rob an old man that is also on the bus.  Reacher gets off the bus to prevent the old man from any danger. The adventure begins and the good guy wins but not without making it clear that he lives another day but will not always live another day.  Reacher is clear that his time will run out at some point, from my point of view I certainly hope it is not for a long time.   

“Reacher knows cities.”  What a terrific statement.  In three words Child, has managed to say volumes about his main character.  One of the things I love about Reacher is his ability to analyze everything: the environment, the people, the weather, the smallest of details. In this novel, the reader gets a heavy dose of the inside of Reacher’s mind and how it works. 

I do not want to give the story away, but let’s say that it involves health insurance, cancer, the Ukranian and Albanian mobs, and a whole lot of money.  It also involves a lot of killing. I am pretty sure that Reacher has never killed this many people in one book; it is rather like John Wick in terms of the death count.  It does make the killing better that not a single dead guy is by any means a good guy and not a genius for sure! It is, however, a great read and may just be Child’s best novel yet.