Not a Drill

★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Reacher sets out for the Canadian border, to make it as far north on this Interstate as possible, just because. Not too far south from there, he stops in a tourist-y town, a haven for backpackers, hikers, wilderness types in general. Before he leaves, a whole lot of military types show up and block access to the forest from the town (well, they try to – the forest is pretty big, it's impossible to block access to the whole thing).

This gets Reacher's curiosity piqued and he starts poking around to see if he can understand why.

I don't want to sound bloodthirsty here, but not a single fight. No threat of violence breaking out. Mostly, it's Reacher walking around and observing things before making a heck of a guess/deduction that proved to be right.

Dark, cynical ending – one of Child's more political statements.

Hill was okay, not terribly interesting, but I think that's Child's fault this time.

It's not bad. It's just disappointing, short and . . . bleh. Proof that they can't all be winners, I guess.

Meh. Not my favorite Child/Reacher story. It was typical Reacher, all morally strong and crazy abilities to see what everyone else missed (though no shoot outs this time around), but the story itself was mostly boring. Glad I borrowed it from my local library rather than buying it.

Thank you Lee Child for this tasty little appetiser which will sustain me until the new Reacher book comes out later this month. I loved it.