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Missing
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Series
Genres
Collection
Publication
Bantam (2018), Edition: 15, 496 pages
Description
Fiction. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � Lee Child returns with a gripping new powerhouse thriller featuring Jack Reacher, �one of this century�s most original, tantalizing pop-fiction heroes� (The Washington Post). Reacher takes a stroll through a small Wisconsin town and sees a class ring in a pawn shop window: West Point 2005. A tough year to graduate: Iraq, then Afghanistan. The ring is tiny, for a woman, and it has her initials engraved on the inside. Reacher wonders what unlucky circumstance made her give up something she earned over four hard years. He decides to find out. And find the woman. And return her ring. Why not? So begins a harrowing journey that takes Reacher through the upper Midwest, from a lowlife bar on the sad side of small town to a dirt-blown crossroads in the middle of nowhere, encountering bikers, cops, crooks, muscle, and a missing persons PI who wears a suit and a tie in the Wyoming wilderness. The deeper Reacher digs, and the more he learns, the more dangerous the terrain becomes. Turns out the ring was just a small link in a far darker chain. Powerful forces are guarding a vast criminal enterprise. Some lines should never be crossed. But then, neither should Reacher. Praise for The Midnight Line �Puts Reacher just where we want him.��The New York Times Book Review �A gem.��Chicago Tribune �A timely, suspenseful, morally complex thriller, one of the best I�ve read this year . . . Child weaves in a passionately told history of opioids in American life. . . . Child�s outrage over it is only just barely contained.��The Philadelphia Inquirer �A perfect example of Lee Child�s talent . . . Lee Child is the master of plotting. . . . This is Child�s most emotional book to date. . . . This is not just a good story; it is a story with a purpose and a message.��Huffington Post �I just read the new Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child. . . . It is as good as they always are. I read every single one.��Malcolm Gladwell.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member rosalita
Perpetual drifter Jack Reacher is drifting about the wilds of Wisconsin when he spies a class ring from West Point in the window of a pawnshop. This offends his sensibilities since he knows how hard West Point cadets work to earn that ring, and he cannot imagine any scenario other than strife that
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would make one of them voluntarily surrender it. It's very small, clearly sized for a woman, with the initials SRS engraved inside the band. Reacher buys the ring and sets out to return it to its owner, whoever she may be. His search leads him from Wisconsin to Rapid City, South Dakota, and on to the empty stretches of Wyoming. Along the way, he manages to get involved with various elements of a drug cartel and fend off numerous hapless goons in a variety of fist fights. As one does. If you enjoy reading about the physical exploits of a man whose hands are variously described as the size of supermarket chickens, dinner plates, and Thanksgiving turkeys, you will like this one. I deducted a half-star for the choppy writing and egregious overuse of sentence fragments, which thankfully was less noticeable as the action got going. I'm worried that after 22 book-length adventures and a double handful of short stories that Child's shtick is wearing thin on me. Show Less
LibraryThing member ABVR
More than any other thriller writer I can think of, Lee Child seems determined to stretch himself. The 22 novels in the Jack Reacher series cover a dozen different thriller sub-genres, and at least 3 or 4 count (in my book) as flat-out experiments. Some work better than others, and reasonable
The Midnight Line is absolutely an experiment, and having read it I'm pretty sure I could reverse-engineer the specific challenges that Child set for himself in writing it. That he met those challenges, and produced a good book in the process, speaks volumes about his skill as a writer.
It's hard to say more without giving away parts of the story that shouldn't be given away up front, but here's one example of what I mean:
Virtually the entire story takes place in South Dakota and Wyoming: enormous states with very low population density and road layouts characteristic of much of the Mountain West. In The Midnight Line Child has the characters actually deal with those geographic realities: The tactical implications of enormously long, ruler-straight roads . . . the complexity of interpreting locals' time-and-distance estimates . . . the way you route-plan and navigate in a state that's mostly open space . . . and the welcome-to-the-West reality of 3-hour drives for routine errands.
And damned if he doesn't pull it off. The geometry of Wyoming and South Dakota are, in the end, like a character in the book.
What's even more impressive is that Child has at least four other aspects of the story where he's making himself play (more or less) by real-world rules, with no for-the-sake-of-the-story mulligans . . . and he handles them just as well.
That said, there's a cost: The pacing, the use of violence, and the way Reacher interacts with the problem at hand are all atypical for the series . . . and I can see longtime fans feeling like it plays a bit flat. I don't know that I'd want to read three more like this, but done once, and done well, it was thrilling.
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people will disagree over which ones are which, but having watched a lot of thriller writers go stale and repetitive (hey there, Jack Higgins!), I give Child all the credit in the world for working to avoid that.The Midnight Line is absolutely an experiment, and having read it I'm pretty sure I could reverse-engineer the specific challenges that Child set for himself in writing it. That he met those challenges, and produced a good book in the process, speaks volumes about his skill as a writer.
It's hard to say more without giving away parts of the story that shouldn't be given away up front, but here's one example of what I mean:
Virtually the entire story takes place in South Dakota and Wyoming: enormous states with very low population density and road layouts characteristic of much of the Mountain West. In The Midnight Line Child has the characters actually deal with those geographic realities: The tactical implications of enormously long, ruler-straight roads . . . the complexity of interpreting locals' time-and-distance estimates . . . the way you route-plan and navigate in a state that's mostly open space . . . and the welcome-to-the-West reality of 3-hour drives for routine errands.
And damned if he doesn't pull it off. The geometry of Wyoming and South Dakota are, in the end, like a character in the book.
What's even more impressive is that Child has at least four other aspects of the story where he's making himself play (more or less) by real-world rules, with no for-the-sake-of-the-story mulligans . . . and he handles them just as well.
That said, there's a cost: The pacing, the use of violence, and the way Reacher interacts with the problem at hand are all atypical for the series . . . and I can see longtime fans feeling like it plays a bit flat. I don't know that I'd want to read three more like this, but done once, and done well, it was thrilling.
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LibraryThing member gmmartz
'The Midnight Line' is vintage Reacher, for better or worse. Some folks might shy away from the violence and illegal acts done in the name of what's right, but not this reader. Lee Child can continue to crank them out as often as he can, provided the quality doesn't suffer. And it hasn't.
The
As always, Child's writing is terse and to the point, which exactly matches the pace of the action. The characters are nicely drawn (if you don't know Reacher by now, I don't know what to say, but the rest of the people are well done) and the dialogue is believable. The cool thing for me was that I learned a lot about the opioid crisis I hadn't known before, especially on the supply chain side as well as the impact on individual users. It's a tough situation we're in.
In sum, loved it and knocked it out in a day. As I said, classic Reacher.....
The
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Midlight Line begins as a few others in this series do: something 'ordinary' happens, it piques Reacher's curiosity, and he drops everything to check it out. In this case, during a stop on a busride he happens to see a West Point ring in a pawnshop and decides it doesn't belong there. He buys it from the proprieter, but not before getting a lead on where it came from. He excuses himself from the remainder of the trip and throws his whole self into finding the owner of the ring. A few hundred fast moving pages later, he succeeds and then goes to work on the situation that forced the owner to lose it in the first place.As always, Child's writing is terse and to the point, which exactly matches the pace of the action. The characters are nicely drawn (if you don't know Reacher by now, I don't know what to say, but the rest of the people are well done) and the dialogue is believable. The cool thing for me was that I learned a lot about the opioid crisis I hadn't known before, especially on the supply chain side as well as the impact on individual users. It's a tough situation we're in.
In sum, loved it and knocked it out in a day. As I said, classic Reacher.....
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LibraryThing member chasidar
Definitely one of Lee Child's better Reacher books. I really enjoyed it.
LibraryThing member nbmars
In The Midnight Line, Lee Child discloses, for the first time (I think) his knight errant hero, Jack Reacher’s, secret to personal hygiene. Many of Child’s loyal fans (me, among them) have wondered how Reacher is able to thrive without a change of clothes, but in this latest book we learn that
That important point aside, The Midnight Line is actually quite a good tale, well told. Shortly after spending three days in sexual heaven (Milwaukee?!) with Michelle Chang (who abruptly leaves him and the story for good on page two), Reacher finds himself in a pawn shop where he discovers a class ring from The United States Military Academy (West Point). He wonders why a well educated army officer would pawn her (the ring is very small) class ring. Reacher, being Reacher, with nothing else to do, attempts to ascertain the ring’s provenance, and in the process discovers a long supply chain of illegal opioid pharmaceuticals reaching to the badlands of South Dakota and southern Wyoming. As in any Jack Reacher book, he also encounters some disagreeable characters in need of a good thrashing (duly given). As a result of such thrashing, Reacher makes some enemies who spend the rest of the book trying to kill him. Fat chance! (We have read several other Jack Reacher books). He also encounters a private detective who is looking for the same West Point graduate.
The elusive graduate happens to have a rich and ravishingly beautiful identical twin sister (herein, “RBITS”) who has hired the detective to find her. Reacher, the detective, and RBITS join forces to search for the sister, who apparently doesn’t want to be found. When they finally do locate her, she turns out to have been badly facially disfigured while on duty in Afghanistan and has become addicted to opoids.
The final problem faced by our heroes is to assure the disabled sister a sufficient supply of opioids to last her through what promises to be a rather long recovery period. This they accomplish by commandeering a large shipment of illegal drugs from the bad guys, and in the process bringing many of those bad guys to justice. All’s well that ends well with Reacher hitchhiking south toward Kansas with just the clothes on his back and a toothbrush.
I like to poke fun at some of the cartoonish aspects of the Jack Reacher character, but I can’t gainsay Lee Child’s ability to make the reader want to get to the next chapter. The Midnight Line is one of his better efforts.
(JAB)
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he uses an entire bar of soap each time he showers! I guess we shouldn’t let realism get in the way of a good trope.That important point aside, The Midnight Line is actually quite a good tale, well told. Shortly after spending three days in sexual heaven (Milwaukee?!) with Michelle Chang (who abruptly leaves him and the story for good on page two), Reacher finds himself in a pawn shop where he discovers a class ring from The United States Military Academy (West Point). He wonders why a well educated army officer would pawn her (the ring is very small) class ring. Reacher, being Reacher, with nothing else to do, attempts to ascertain the ring’s provenance, and in the process discovers a long supply chain of illegal opioid pharmaceuticals reaching to the badlands of South Dakota and southern Wyoming. As in any Jack Reacher book, he also encounters some disagreeable characters in need of a good thrashing (duly given). As a result of such thrashing, Reacher makes some enemies who spend the rest of the book trying to kill him. Fat chance! (We have read several other Jack Reacher books). He also encounters a private detective who is looking for the same West Point graduate.
The elusive graduate happens to have a rich and ravishingly beautiful identical twin sister (herein, “RBITS”) who has hired the detective to find her. Reacher, the detective, and RBITS join forces to search for the sister, who apparently doesn’t want to be found. When they finally do locate her, she turns out to have been badly facially disfigured while on duty in Afghanistan and has become addicted to opoids.
The final problem faced by our heroes is to assure the disabled sister a sufficient supply of opioids to last her through what promises to be a rather long recovery period. This they accomplish by commandeering a large shipment of illegal drugs from the bad guys, and in the process bringing many of those bad guys to justice. All’s well that ends well with Reacher hitchhiking south toward Kansas with just the clothes on his back and a toothbrush.
I like to poke fun at some of the cartoonish aspects of the Jack Reacher character, but I can’t gainsay Lee Child’s ability to make the reader want to get to the next chapter. The Midnight Line is one of his better efforts.
(JAB)
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LibraryThing member alanteder
My kind of Reacher
I've been tough on the last several Reacher novels when yet another Army prequel from 20+ years ago gets thrown in (Night School) or where the villains are just too absurd (Make Me), or where Reacher was distracted with a European jaunt (Personal).
For me, the best Reacher is the
I've been tough on the last several Reacher novels when yet another Army prequel from 20+ years ago gets thrown in (Night School) or where the villains are just too absurd (Make Me), or where Reacher was distracted with a European jaunt (Personal).
For me, the best Reacher is the
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lone wolf wandering the highways of America armed only with a toothbrush, an ATM card and wearing this week's change of down-market clothes. This is the iconic Reacher, i.e. the Shane, the Man with No Name, Yojimbo etc. and on that score "The Midnight LIne" is the best Reacher in years. It is also surprisingly low on violence except for an extended street fight near the front end. It is high on the mystery side though and there are several of them along the way. It is thoughtful about wounded military veterans and the circumstances that they may have to return home to. It is thoughtful about the opiate crisis. But most of all it is a return to form of the Reacher that many of us were drawn to in the first place. Show Less
LibraryThing member iadam
I received a free advance e-copy of this book and have chosen to write an honest and unbiased review. I have no personal affiliation with the author. This is an extremely well written thriller. The author lets the reader see the plight of many veterans who return home from war after severe injuries
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and how they sometimes slip through the cracks and are forgotten. Many have been decorated for their heroism and have given up a great deal. The reader also sees firsthand the real problems with opioids in this country. We see both the kind, empathic, and caring side of Jack Reacher along with his hard, dangerous, and ruthless nature. I sense a solitary loneliness and weariness in his soul as he wanders the country. This book is a keeper and well worth the read. I couldn’t put it down. I look forward to reading more about Jack Reacher in the future. Show Less
LibraryThing member Carol420
Jack Reacher just wants to return a ring that he found in a pawn shop in a small town in South Dakota. The owner had been a West Point graduate and Jack knows she wouldn't have just given it up without a good reason. Little does he know that following the ring's trail was going to involve him in a
I am a big fan of the Jack Reacher series in spite of the 'Tom Cruise is not Reacher" debate. The character of Jack Reacher has always been a loner and because of that most of the time becomes suspect where ever he goes. This time he not only was accepted by the local law but he manages to not upset the apple cart too much, He shows a lot of compassion and understaning for this wounded 5 time Iraq veteran and even bent some of his most basic rules for her. Long time Reacher fans will find this an outstanding addition to the series and new readers will diffidently want more.
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bigger more deadly scheme.I am a big fan of the Jack Reacher series in spite of the 'Tom Cruise is not Reacher" debate. The character of Jack Reacher has always been a loner and because of that most of the time becomes suspect where ever he goes. This time he not only was accepted by the local law but he manages to not upset the apple cart too much, He shows a lot of compassion and understaning for this wounded 5 time Iraq veteran and even bent some of his most basic rules for her. Long time Reacher fans will find this an outstanding addition to the series and new readers will diffidently want more.
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LibraryThing member labdaddy4
This series of novels has been going on since 1997. For the author to be able to keep his books fresh and topical is a testament to his ability. "Midnight Line" is an excellent book. Not only does it retain the components of action and snappy dialog present in all the previous books - this one has
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two elements that make it very timely - namely wounded veterans combined with the opiod crisis. Child is one of our best thriller writers - keep them coming. Show Less
LibraryThing member jfe16
Jack Reacher spies a West Point ring in a pawn shop window and, in an effort to return it to its rightful owner, uncovers a dark secret. The more he investigates, the more danger he faces, but he’s determined, and once Jack Reacher makes up his mind . . . .
Jack Reacher’s twenty-second outing
With ample opportunity for physical encounters, Jack Reacher seems in fine form and the exquisitely-written narrative is classic Reacher from the first page to the last. Readers will find the building suspense and tension keeps the pages turning and makes it all-but-impossible to set the book aside until the final reveal . . . which is not without unexpected twists even though it’s simply Jack Reacher being Jack Reacher . . . and the poignancy of the unfolding story affords readers the opportunity to once again recognize and appreciate the admirable moral code and the compassion that are both an integral part of the man.
Highly recommended.
Jack Reacher’s twenty-second outing
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finds him, at first, seeking the provenance of a West Point ring and wishing to return that ring to its rightful owner. But first he needs to find out who owned the ring and, as he delves into the mystery surrounding it, he finds himself embroiled in dark deceits and the intolerable treatment for returning servicemen and women.With ample opportunity for physical encounters, Jack Reacher seems in fine form and the exquisitely-written narrative is classic Reacher from the first page to the last. Readers will find the building suspense and tension keeps the pages turning and makes it all-but-impossible to set the book aside until the final reveal . . . which is not without unexpected twists even though it’s simply Jack Reacher being Jack Reacher . . . and the poignancy of the unfolding story affords readers the opportunity to once again recognize and appreciate the admirable moral code and the compassion that are both an integral part of the man.
Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member jtsolakos
Easy to read. Enough action to satisfy most. All the Jack Reacher fans will love-love-love the book. Others will find the cowboys, bikers, and drug dealers interesting.
Thanks to Goodreads for an advanced copy of this book.
Thanks to Goodreads for an advanced copy of this book.
LibraryThing member thewanderingjew
The Midnight Line, Lee Child, author; Dick Hill, narrator
The book is read well, but is often unsettling because the narrator’s voice has a tremor. Also, although he enunciates and expresses the narrative very well, he fails to adequately delineate between the characters so it is often difficult
Jack Reacher is a wanderer. A former Army officer in an elite division, he does not like to stay in one place. His years of service to his country have left its mark on him. When he wanders into a pawn shop in Wisconsin and discovers a class ring from the West Point class of 2005, he becomes intrigued because he does not believe that anyone who worked so hard to graduate would give it up willingly.
The ring is small, indicating it was probably owned by a tiny woman. Reacher is a larger than life man, and he had graduated from West Point many years before, so he purchases the ring and is obsessive about finding its owner. The story follows a circuitous path, which often has some holes in it, leaving the reader wondering about how Reacher arrived in one place or another or reached one or another conclusion. Since he has no car, he hitchhikes and walks to his destinations. On the way he meets many different odd characters, some of whom are dangerous, some of whom are benign. When he finds the person who supposedly knows where the ring came from, he discovers that he has a very shady past. The ring and the people involved with it seem to be, in some way, possibly connected to drug smuggling, possibly as users, possibly as distributers or pushers. Often Reacher uses unconventional methods to glean information. He refuses to give up his quest to find the woman who owned the ring regardless of the obstacles placed in his way. He faces danger, stares it in the face calmly and survives. Soon he discovers that someone else is looking for her. Her twin sister has hired a private detective because she has not heard from her in over a year. Reacher also discovers that law enforcement has an interest in her and in some of the people she may have known. When Reacher tries to get information from West Point, he discovers some files, including hers, are sealed, but he does discover she received a purple heart. This leads him to believe she may be hiding for a reason. Together, all of the characters weave a tale about the search that takes the reader to unexpected destinations, sometimes without adequate explanation.
In the end, I was not really sure what point it was that the author was attempting to make. Was it to highlight the terrible drug epidemic in this country? Was it to highlight the terrible effect of war on our soldiers? Was it to highlight the horrific dangers they faced? Was it to highlight their bravery? Often soldiers suffer grievous wounds with poor recovery options. Was it to highlight their lack of proper care or the toll on their psyches? Was it to highlight the corruption that was found in unexpected places that placed people in danger? Perhaps some readers will find a plausible explanation for the quest and the end result. I kept trying to figure out the author’s point, but, ultimately, that point somehow got lost along the way.
The book is read well, but is often unsettling because the narrator’s voice has a tremor. Also, although he enunciates and expresses the narrative very well, he fails to adequately delineate between the characters so it is often difficult
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to figure out who is speaking. The story also rolls out slowly and sometimes becomes too detailed, causing the reader to lose interest.Jack Reacher is a wanderer. A former Army officer in an elite division, he does not like to stay in one place. His years of service to his country have left its mark on him. When he wanders into a pawn shop in Wisconsin and discovers a class ring from the West Point class of 2005, he becomes intrigued because he does not believe that anyone who worked so hard to graduate would give it up willingly.
The ring is small, indicating it was probably owned by a tiny woman. Reacher is a larger than life man, and he had graduated from West Point many years before, so he purchases the ring and is obsessive about finding its owner. The story follows a circuitous path, which often has some holes in it, leaving the reader wondering about how Reacher arrived in one place or another or reached one or another conclusion. Since he has no car, he hitchhikes and walks to his destinations. On the way he meets many different odd characters, some of whom are dangerous, some of whom are benign. When he finds the person who supposedly knows where the ring came from, he discovers that he has a very shady past. The ring and the people involved with it seem to be, in some way, possibly connected to drug smuggling, possibly as users, possibly as distributers or pushers. Often Reacher uses unconventional methods to glean information. He refuses to give up his quest to find the woman who owned the ring regardless of the obstacles placed in his way. He faces danger, stares it in the face calmly and survives. Soon he discovers that someone else is looking for her. Her twin sister has hired a private detective because she has not heard from her in over a year. Reacher also discovers that law enforcement has an interest in her and in some of the people she may have known. When Reacher tries to get information from West Point, he discovers some files, including hers, are sealed, but he does discover she received a purple heart. This leads him to believe she may be hiding for a reason. Together, all of the characters weave a tale about the search that takes the reader to unexpected destinations, sometimes without adequate explanation.
In the end, I was not really sure what point it was that the author was attempting to make. Was it to highlight the terrible drug epidemic in this country? Was it to highlight the terrible effect of war on our soldiers? Was it to highlight the horrific dangers they faced? Was it to highlight their bravery? Often soldiers suffer grievous wounds with poor recovery options. Was it to highlight their lack of proper care or the toll on their psyches? Was it to highlight the corruption that was found in unexpected places that placed people in danger? Perhaps some readers will find a plausible explanation for the quest and the end result. I kept trying to figure out the author’s point, but, ultimately, that point somehow got lost along the way.
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LibraryThing member infjsarah
This was a much better read than the last Jack Reacher. Drug addiction to opiates in the US seems to be a theme for novels and TV at the moment. So this was actually kinda sad.
LibraryThing member Romonko
I love the Jack Reacher series and I love Jack Reacher as a character. In this book we see a softer side to Reacher, but when tested, the man of the iron will, and the even harder muscles emerges in different places throughout the book. The story starts with a small West Point ring that he finds in
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a pawnshop. Reacher wonders why anyone would give up a ring that they worked so hard for. It sends him on a journey to the wilds of Wyoming, chasing a soldier's story. On the way he meets up wih an ex-FBI man turned private investigator, who it turns out is searching for the same woman. They make an unlikely, but effective duo and on the way they uncover a very sophisticated drug ring that spans across three or four states. The book was fun, even if it was a little slower paced than most of the previous books in this series. I eagerly await the next one. Show Less
LibraryThing member capewood
I think if you like Jack Reacher stories you'll like "The Midnight Line". There are a few 1 star reviews but they're not very specific. As a whole the book is averaging 4.3 stars which is in the ballpark of my rating. It's a bit repetitive from previous stories. Jack's got to get some new internal
I only had two real problems with the book. Lee Child's dialog has always been a little flat. Reacher himself must talk in a monotone and much of the dialog here reads like Reacher talking to himself (which, by the way, he does a lot). The other problem is that well into the book he didn't get laid. Not that that was a problem for me but he always gets laid and the list of potential women in this story was very short. I would have had a problem with any of the women it turned out to be.
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dialog. And if I read the lone "Reacher said nothing" again, I may scream. But the story was interesting and certainly topical. It deals with injured soldiers and opioid addiction. Not a happy subject and Child doesn't do anything to make it easier to think about. As usual, Jack sticks his nose into something (he finds a woman's sized West Point graduation ring while killing time in a pawn shop before a bus leaves) and finds more than he bargained for (he simply wanted to return her ring and finds an opioid drug ring). He literally has nothing else to do. You'd think he'd learn by now, nothing he ever undertakes is simple. Jack doesn't get into many fights these days. He suffered a concussion in the last book which was only briefly mentioned here. According to the Wikipedia article on Reacher, he's 57 years old. He ought to be slowing down a bit. There were two instances in the book where he seriously underestimated a threat either of which would have resulted in the death of a lesser man.I only had two real problems with the book. Lee Child's dialog has always been a little flat. Reacher himself must talk in a monotone and much of the dialog here reads like Reacher talking to himself (which, by the way, he does a lot). The other problem is that well into the book he didn't get laid. Not that that was a problem for me but he always gets laid and the list of potential women in this story was very short. I would have had a problem with any of the women it turned out to be.
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LibraryThing member jamespurcell
Lee Child is a fine storyteller and Midnight Line is a really good tale of a modern day knightly quest. Reacher rescues a West Point ring from a pawn shop and off we go into the modern day world of opioid addiction. Finding the ring wearer is only one of the challenges. Bad guys abound and need to
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be dispatched; which he does with his usual clinical vehemence. An Amazon-like procurement and distribution system is flourishing in the sparsely populated upper Mid West despite a DEA declaration that it is no longer possible. Reacher and his pickup team take it down in a midnight stealth strike. Death by dryer is a particularly appropriate finale for the kingpin of this network. Show Less
LibraryThing member ritaer
Reacher spots a West Point ring in a pawnshop. Curious as to why a graduate would sell such a valued item he sets out to track down the owner. But the people he encounters keep trying to kill him and the mystery deepens. He ends up in the hills of Wyoming confronting a woman who has lost everything.
LibraryThing member bcrowl399
I think this was one of the best Reacher books I've read. I enjoyed every word, chapter and verse. It was so well thought out. I loved the modern setting. Opioid addiction is a real problem in our country. The story helped me to understand why that's so. I understand the need for pain meds, having
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been in a lot of pain in the past myself. I also understand addiction. The characters were entirely believable and the western setting was beautiful and scary at the same time. This was a triumph for Lee Child and my book is signed, which makes it even more special. Show Less
LibraryThing member repb
What a disappointment! I liked very little about this book ... and I am a big fan of Child. This story seemed to go on and on and on and on ... you get the idea. 100 pages could easily have been edited out. But overall it was just a dumb plot. Way too complicated with a bizarre cast of dozens!
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Child seems to have lost his way with our friend, Jack Reacher (alias Big Foot, alias the Incredible Hulk, etc,.) Show Less
LibraryThing member ChelleBearss
Another edition of the Jack Reacher series. Typical and enjoyable.
LibraryThing member Hardboiled
It's been a while since I have read one of Reacher's escapades. I've read all of Child's early Reachers but it got to a point where they became stale so I backed off. I finally decided it was time to give him another chance to see what's changed. I slid into this tale like a old glove ...
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reacquainting with a old friend who really hasn't changed like I'd hoped. Child has not lost his touch in terms of creating a storyline that's both initially intriguing and fast paced. However, I found that pace started to slow down about half way through until it ground to a halt at the end. Taken in its entirety it was a quick read but without the maturation, for lack of a better term, of Reacher's character that I had been looking for. Show Less
LibraryThing member BillieBook
This was a HUGE mis-match between book and narrator. Dick Hill would have been great if he were reading non-fiction about historic naval battles or maybe middle grade fantasy, but not a Jack Reacher novel. The text itself was a solid outing in the series, but I probably won't choose to listen to
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further installments if they feature the same narrator. Show Less
LibraryThing member ericreeves3
Another interesting installment in the Jack Reacher series. The story starts off with Reacher and a chance encounter with a ring and leads him on a wild journey filled with bikers, druggies, and gov't agents to find the answer to what happened to the ring's owner. The book takes the reader on a
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non-stop journey through the underworld of the upper midwest Show Less
LibraryThing member Alan1946
This book only just scraped the four stars. Reacher has changed - there is less of the emphasis on brute force (though it can still be there) and more on cerebral analysis of situations. There are a great many conversations, but how come when information is required, Reacher contacts his former
I did still enjoy it, however, and thought that Reacher's desire to find the owner of the ring, and once having found them to make sure that the situation involving its original owner is put right, is praiseworthy. I like the description of Reacher by those involved in nefarious proceedings as "Bigfoot" - makes me wonder if Mr. Child is having a bit of a side swipe at his film persona!
Not unputdownable for once, but there is still the skill of the author in keeping the reader guessing, and the title is really quite clever.
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office in some situations, but in others doesn't even get his temporary colleagues to Google information that must be widely available on the net! Having said that there is the usual feeling of what on earth is going on here? All does become clear as progress is made, but it is just a bit of a stretch to go from seeing a small West Point ring in a shop window, to a full blown investigation in South Dakota.I did still enjoy it, however, and thought that Reacher's desire to find the owner of the ring, and once having found them to make sure that the situation involving its original owner is put right, is praiseworthy. I like the description of Reacher by those involved in nefarious proceedings as "Bigfoot" - makes me wonder if Mr. Child is having a bit of a side swipe at his film persona!
Not unputdownable for once, but there is still the skill of the author in keeping the reader guessing, and the title is really quite clever.
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LibraryThing member sberson
One of the better ones.
Awards
The British Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — 2018)
Theakstons Old Peculier Prize (Longlist — 2018)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2017-11-07
Physical description
496 p.; 5 inches
ISBN
0857503618 / 9780857503619
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DDC/MDS
| 813.54 |