Jack Reacher is a former military cop and he’s trained to notice things. So when he is on a Greyhound bus, watching an elderly man sleeping in his seat, he immediately notes the big wad of cash hanging out of his pocket – and he also notices the young man watching the cash too. He prevents the man from having his money stolen, but when he finds that he is in big trouble with the loan sharks, he resolves to help Aaron and his wife Maria.
This elderly couple owe big money to some very bad people – and it’s not long before Reacher finds himself in the middle of a brutal turf war between rival Ukrainian and Albanian gangs.
Reacher has to use all his wits and physical training to stay one step ahead of the loan sharks and assassins. He teams up with a beautiful waitress who knows a thing or two about the gangs, and together they set out to make these bad people pay for the brutal things they have done, and to ensure Aaron and Maria are no longer in their debt. But the odds are against him. But Reacher believes in a random universe, where ‘once in a blue moon things turn out just right.’
This is a classic thriller from Lee Child, with Reacher playing a modern-day errant knight, fighting for the underdog. Along the way, there is loads of action and violence, and the body count literally piles up, but there is something oddly comforting about Jack Reacher and his sheer strength and size. When the odds are against him, you know he will probably triumph, and put a bullet in the bad guy’s head, or fight his way single-handedly out of trouble. It’s definitely a world of fiction, but one that is very well done.
Reviewer: Karen McMillan
Penguin Random House