Ratings101
Average rating3.8
Jack Reacher. Hero. Loner. Soldier. Soldier’s son. An elite military cop, he was one of the army’s brightest stars. But in every cop’s life there is a turning point. One case. One messy, tangled case that can shatter a career. Turn a lawman into a renegade. And make him question words like honor, valor, and duty. For Jack Reacher, this is that case.
New Year’s Day, 1990. The Berlin Wall is coming down. The world is changing. And in a North Carolina “hot-sheets” motel, a two-star general is found dead. His briefcase is missing. Nobody knows what was in it. Within minutes Jack Reacher has his orders: Control the situation. But this situation can’t be controlled. Within hours the general’s wife is murdered hundreds of miles away. Then the dominoes really start to fall.
Two Special Forces soldiers—the toughest of the tough—are taken down, one at a time. Top military commanders are moved from place to place in a bizarre game of chess. And somewhere inside the vast worldwide fortress that is the U.S. Army, Jack Reacher—an ordinarily untouchable investigator for the 110th Special Unit—is being set up as a fall guy with the worst enemies a man can have.
But Reacher won’t quit. He’s fighting a new kind of war. And he’s taking a young female lieutenant with him on a deadly hunt that leads them from the ragged edges of a rural army post to the winding streets of Paris to a confrontation with an enemy he didn’t know he had. With his French-born mother dying—and divulging to her son one last, stunning secret—Reacher is forced to question everything he once believed…about his family, his career, his loyalties—and himself. Because this soldier’s son is on his way into the darkness, where he finds a tangled drama of desperate desires and violent death—and a conspiracy more chilling, ingenious, and treacherous than anyone could have guessed.
Featured Series
29 primary books45 released booksJack Reacher is a 45-book series with 33 released primary works first released in 3 with contributions by Lee Child, Joseph Finder, and Kathy Reichs. 1 book is still to be released. The next book is scheduled for release on .
Featured Series
24 primary books36 released booksJack Reacher Chronological Order is a 36-book series with 24 released primary works first released in 3 with contributions by Lee Child, Joseph Finder, and Kathy Reichs.
Reviews with the most likes.
This was my first Reacher novel, and the first chronologically. I was hoping to find another thriller/mystery/crime series that I could rely on to satisfy that urge the way Ross MacDonald and Elmore Leonard do. It was fine, but probably not a series I will return to.
(Edit Oct-2021: I have been convinced by a friend to give Reacher another chance, in that this book is not a typical Reacher novel. But I'm still going to read them in chronological order, against the advice of that same friend.)
A little different than Child's usual Reacher plot as this one flashes back to his military career. Nice to get a little more background on our hero through his brother and his mother. On par with Persuader and 100x better than Echo Burning (my least favorite Reacher book thus far). Do wish Leon played a little bit bigger part.
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