Copyright 2019 by Lee Child. Published by Dell, an imprint of Random House, New York.

This is #24 (of 27 currently) in the Jack Reacher series of adventure/mystery books by Lee Child. I have read quite a few. But not 24. I will eventually read all of them, I think. But it will take some time.

I like all of the Reacher books. He is a larger-than-life hero. An iconoclast. One man against the world. Or, in the case of Blue Moon, one man against two rival organized crime gangs that have split a city in two: a Ukranian gang on the west and an Albanian gang on the east.

How does Reacher get involved in this mess? He sees a man on the bus with a large envelope of cash and another passenger on that bus who is clearly aiming to take it. He follows both off the bus, prevents the mugging and helps the man to his house.

The envelope contains $15,000, the proceeds from the sale of their car. This poor, elderly couple had sold their only car to pay for medical treatment for their only child, a grown daughter who thought she had insurance but had the misfortune to work for an unethical computer genius who let the company’s medical insurance lapse.

Well, that just ain’t right. Reacher starts looking into it and rather inadverantly runs afoul of one gang, then the other. What’s a lone, unarmed man to do when confronted by two vicious, highly competent criminal organizations? Kill them all, of course.

This is the most violent and unrealistic Reacher book that I have read. Highly implausible plot. An immense body count. Gratuitous murder. But still a fun read.

7 out of 10.

Copyright 2013 by Columbus Rose Ltd. Published by Grand Central Publishing, New York.

This eponymous mystery is #6 in the series by David Baldacci featuring Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, two former Secret Service agents who formed their own private investigation business. It is a small, 2-person operation (though at the end of the book they take on an employee). Being fit and attractive and forced to spend long hours together, there is some sexual tension between them, but in this book it is (almost) all business.

In this book they acquire a client – a 16-year-old high school student and swimmer who they happen to see running down the street carrying an antique revolver. It is never quite clear why he had the gun, but it doesn’t matter – it is just a “meet cute”, a device to get the plot rolling.

Maxwell chases the boy down, subdues him and calms him down. She learns that his father – an army reservist who was called to duty in Afghanistan – has been killed in action. She comforts the boy, takes him home and explains the situation to his stepmother, who married the father just a short time before he went overseas. They leave, having done their good deed for the day, but Michelle does not return the gun. She wants an excuse to return because she senses something is not quite right.

Nope, not right at all. Soon the questions start piling up. Is the father really dead? Is he really a reservist? Is the stepmom really his wife? It is the start of a slide down a slippery slope into a very deep mystery involving huge amounts of cash, treason, kidnapping, murder, the settling of a 25-year-old grudge and a renewed relationship between King and his ex-wife. They have to survive several attempts on their lives to get to the bottom of it all.

It is a fun ride. Quick-moving with interesting characters and plot.

8 out of 10.

Copyright 2001 by Jonathan Kellerman. Published by Ballantine Publishing Group.

Normally when I finish a book in 4 days it means that I really like the book. In this case it means less than that because the 4 days were days without electricity following Hurricane Ian. Still, not a bad book.

This is #15 in Kellerman’s popular series of mysteries featuring psychologist Alex Delaware. In this one he treats, briefly, a troubled 15-year-old girl, Lauren Teague, and then, 10 years later, is approached by the girl’s mother because her daughter has gone missing. She is unable to get the police to care and she knows Alex has contacts within the force. Alex uses those contacts – primarily his gay detective buddy, Milo Sturgis – and embarks on a quest to find out what happened to his onetime patient.

Kellerman’s books are realistic as the plot moves forward, often slowly and incrementally, but always plausibly. In this case a few other bodies show up along the way, including another university student who disappeared a year before Lauren. Is a serial killer stalking the campus? The trail leads to several other psych department professors and then to the estate of the publisher of Duke magazine, an upscale soft porn periodical (can anyone say Playboy?).

Plausible, engrossing, entertaining.

7 out of 10.