Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* We all wish we knew just a little bit more about a lot of things and could put that knowledge into decisive action—in our work and in our personal lives. A little bit smarter, a little bit more savvy, a whole lot braver. Which is why we can't get enough of Jack Reacher. He's a fantasy figure, sure, but he's no cartoon character; Jack is made of brains, muscles, reflexes, and instincts—just like us but way, way more so. Which is why you can read a Jack Reacher novel and feel like it's, well, almost real. And that's enough, more than enough, for a couple of hours of frenzied page-turning. You know the drill: Reacher is on a bus, passing through a random town, when something catches his eye. This time it's an elderly man about to be robbed. Reacher intervenes, but, of course, there's more. The man and his wife are deeply in debt to loan sharks for the most unassailable of reasons (daughter with cancer, insurance scam), so Reacher sets out to help, quickly finding himself in the middle of a turf war between Ukrainian and Albanian gangs. What to do? Kill them all, naturally. Child's plot tropes—the ticking clock, the innocents in need, the overwhelming odds—are starting to feel as familiar as his set-up, and not always in a good way. But, finally, we just don't care. We're here to watch Reacher work, outthinking and outmuscling the whole damn world if necessary (it almost is, this time). Will we get tired of Reacher at some point, tired even of our own fantasies of supercompetence? Maybe, but not quite yet.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Reacher is so irresistible a character that he draws fans from every demographic. Even NPR devotees like to read about him killing people! Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.
Kirkus Reviews
Jack Reacher lends a hand to an elderly couple under threat from loan sharks and winds up in the midst of an underworld war in the 24th entry in this series (Past Tense, 2018, etc.). After Reacher saves an old man from a mugging, he finds out the man and his wife went into hock to get money for their daughter's lifesaving medical treatment. Meanwhile, in the unnamed city where the novel is set, the Albanian and Ukrainian crime bosses who have divvied up the territory are vying to see who can take over for good before the appointment of a new police commissioner. The sudden appearance of Reacher makes each suspect he's an agent for outside forces and accelerates the body count between them. That this is the best premise for a Reacher novel in some time, even if it's partly lifted from Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo, can't quite disguise that something has gone off in the series. Reacher's apologies to a suffering old couple that there's not much he can do isn't really what we want in a hero—especially one who has always taken such pleasure in pissing off bullies. Whenever the plot shifts to the machinations between the rival gangsters it bogs down in exposition. And while Reacher's ass-kickings have always been amusing, the series has never developed the dark ability to turn the violence into a deadpan sick joke. The carnage here should be funnier the more extreme it gets. It's not bad, but it's far from the tight, nifty execution that made the Reacher books so much fun to begin with. Perhaps if there were more time between chapters, Child's series could recover the polish it deserves. Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Reviews
Jack Reacher is back, kindly helping an elderly couple, and as always no good deed goes unpunished. Some interesting stats: a Jack Reacher novel is sold every nine seconds somewhere in the world, and the last 12 Reacher hardcovers all debuted in the top spot on the
Library Journal Reviews
In his 24th adventure (after
Publishers Weekly Reviews
At the start of bestseller Child's riveting 24th Jack Reacher novel (after 2018's