Copyright 2014 by Lee Child. Published by Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
There is no such thing as a bad Jack Reacher book, but some are better than others. This one, #19 in the series, is about average. It features an interesting primary plot in which Reacher is tasked – unofficially as he is a private citizen – to track down a sniper (or maybe 2 snipers) who might be gunning for one or more leaders of the western world who will be meeting in a couple of weeks at the G8 summit in London. The alarm is raised when the French President is nearly assassinated, from a distance of 1400 yards, while giving a speech in Paris but is saved by a super-strong pane of security glass on the lectern at which he was speaking. That incident turns out to be not only a close call but a key clue in figuring out whodunit.
Reacher is fingered for the task because the primary suspect – John Kott – has a grudge against Reacher who captured and provided testimony that sent him away to a military prison for 16 years. This animosity is confirmed when Reacher finds his lair in the North Carolina woods where Kott was using photos of Reacher for target practice.
But Kott, if he is indeed one of the snipers (and it wouldn’t be much of a book if he wasn’t) is being bankrolled by someone with some resources. A guy just out of prison is in no position to buy a new sniper rifle, a thousand rounds of 40-caliber bullets at $4 per and get a ticket to fly to France.
Most of the action takes place in or near London where Kott has teamed up with not one, but two criminal gangs. Reacher goes to London and tracks him down with the help of Casey Nice, an attractive sub-30 CIA agent assigned temporarily to the State Department. A relationship between Reacher and Nice blossoms, but unlike most Reacher books, this one never reaches the bed. It is more father/daughter. Is Reacher growing up? Inquiring minds want to know.
Reacher does get opportunities to bust heads, nuts, knees and spleens. The body count creeps up. It is a lot of violence for Merry Old England, but Reacher escapes any accountability. As expected. It is feel-good mayhem.
It finishes with a twist which is pretty common for Reacher books. So, all-in-all, a pretty average Reacher adventure.
7 out of 10.