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Lee Child

Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel Paperback – May 9, 2017

by Lee Child (Author)

20,678 ratings

Book 21 of 27: Jack Reacher

Editors' pick Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The incomparable hero of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back takes readers to school in his most explosive novel yet. After eleven straight global #1 bestsellers, discover the thrillers that The New York Times calls “utterly addictive.”

Don’t miss a sneak peek of Lee Child’s new novel, The Midnight Line, in the back of the book.

It’s 1996, and Reacher is still in the army. In the morning they give him a medal, and in the afternoon they send him back to school. That night he’s off the grid. Out of sight, out of mind.

Two other men are in the classroom—an FBI agent and a CIA analyst. Each is a first-rate operator, each is fresh off a big win, and each is wondering what the hell they are doing there.

Then they find out: A Jihadist sleeper cell in Hamburg, Germany, has received an unexpected visitor—a Saudi courier, seeking safe haven while waiting to rendezvous with persons unknown. A CIA asset, undercover inside the cell, has overheard the courier whisper a chilling message: “The American wants a hundred million dollars.”

For what? And who from? Reacher and his two new friends are told to find the American. Reacher recruits the best soldier he has ever worked with: Sergeant Frances Neagley. Their mission heats up in more ways than one, while always keeping their eyes on the prize: If they don’t get their man, the world will suffer an epic act of terrorism.

From Langley to Hamburg, Jalalabad to Kiev, Night School moves like a bullet through a treacherous landscape of double crosses, faked identities, and new and terrible enemies, as Reacher maneuvers inside the game and outside the law.

Praise for Night School

“The prose is crisp and clean, and the fighting is realistic. . . . This latest installment has all the classic ingredients: a great setting (Hamburg), a good villain, and a mystery that draws you in efficiently, escalates unpredictably, and has a satisfying resolution.”—The New Yorker

“Another timely tour de force . . . The taut thriller is textbook [Lee] Child: fast-paced and topical with a ‘ripped from the headlines’ feel.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“As gripping as ever.”—The Florida Times-Union

Praise for #1 bestselling author Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series

“Reacher [is] one of this century’s most original, tantalizing pop-fiction heroes.”—The Washington Post

Print length

496 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Dell
Publication date

May 9, 2017
Dimensions

4.2 x 1.2 x 7.5 inches
ISBN-10

9780804178822
ISBN-13

978-0804178822
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Popular Highlights in this book

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They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. Hosea, one of the twelve minor prophets, but dead on the money in that case.
Highlighted by 553 Kindle readers
His best friend, possibly, in a guarded way, if friendship was permission to leave things unsaid.
Highlighted by 372 Kindle readers
“My rule of thumb is those kind of questions are best answered afterward. Experience beats conjecture every time.”
Highlighted by 329 Kindle readers

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The prose is crisp and clean, and the fighting is realistic. . . . This latest installment has all the classic ingredients: a great setting (Hamburg), a good villain, and a mystery that draws you in efficiently, escalates unpredictably, and has a satisfying resolution.”—The New Yorker

“Another timely tour de force . . . The taut thriller is textbook [Lee] Child: fast-paced and topical with a ‘ripped from the headlines’ feel.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“As gripping as ever.”—The Florida Times-Union

Praise for #1 bestselling author Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series

“This series [is] utterly addictive.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Reacher [is] one of this century’s most original, tantalizing pop-fiction heroes.”—The Washington Post

About the Author

Lee Child is the author of twenty New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher thrillers, eleven of which have reached the #1 position. All have been optioned for major motion pictures—including Jack Reacher (based on One Shot)and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Lee Child lives in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

In the morning they gave Reacher a medal, and in the afternoon they sent him back to school. The medal was another Legion of Merit. His second. It was a handsome item, enameled in white, with a ribbon halfway between purple and red. Army Regulation 600-8-22 authorized its award for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the United States in a key position of responsibility. Which was a bar Reacher felt he had cleared, technically. But he figured the real reason he was getting it was the same reason he had gotten it before. It was a transaction. A contractual token. Take the bauble and keep your mouth shut about what we asked you to do for it. Which Reacher would have anyway. It was nothing to boast about. The Balkans, some police work, a search for two local men with wartime secrets to keep, both soon identified, and located, and visited, and shot in the head. All part of the peace process. Interests were served, and the region calmed down a little. Two weeks of his life. Four rounds expended. No big deal.

Army Regulation 600-8-22 was surprisingly vague about exactly how medals should be handed out. It said only that decorations were to be presented with an appropriate air of formality and with fitting ceremony. Which usually meant a large room with gilt furniture and a bunch of flags. And an officer senior in rank to the recipient. Reacher was a major, with twelve years in, but other awards were being given out that morning, including three to a trio of colonels and two to a pair of one-star generals, so the big cheese on deck was a three-star from the Pentagon, who Reacher knew from many years before, when the guy had been a CID battalion commander working out of Fort Myer. A thinker. Certainly enough of a thinker to figure out why an MP major was getting a Legion of Merit. He had a look in his eye. Part wry, and part seal-the-deal serious. Take the bauble and keep your mouth shut. Maybe in the past the guy had done the same thing himself. Maybe more than once. He had a whole fruit salad of ribbons on the left chest of his Class-A coat. Including two Legions of Merit.

The appropriately formal room was deep inside Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Which was close to the Pentagon, which was convenient for the three-star. Convenient for Reacher too, because it was about equally close to Rock Creek, where he had been marking time since he got back. Not so convenient for the other officers, who had flown in from Germany.

There was some milling around, and some small talk, and some shaking of hands, and then everyone went quiet and lined up and stood to attention, and salutes were exchanged, and medals were variously pinned or draped on, and then there was more milling around and small talk and shaking of hands. Reacher edged toward the door, keen to get out, but the three-star caught him before he made it. The guy shook his hand and kept hold of his elbow, and said, “I hear you’re getting new orders.”

Reacher said, “No one told me. Not yet. Where did you hear that?”

“My top sergeant. They all talk to each other. U.S. Army NCOs have the world’s most efficient grapevine. It always amazes me.”

“Where do they say I’m going?”

“They don’t know for sure. But not far. Within driving distance, anyway. Apparently the motor pool got a requisition.”

“When am I supposed to find out?”

“Sometime today.”

“Thank you,” Reacher said. “Good to know.”

The three-star let go of his elbow, and Reacher edged onward, to the door, and through it, and out to a corridor, where a sergeant first-class skidded to a halt and saluted. He was out of breath, like he had run a long way. From a distant part of the installation, maybe, where the real work was done.

The guy said, “Sir, with General Garber’s compliments, he requests that you stop by his office at your earliest convenience.”

Reacher said, “Where am I going, soldier?”

“Driving distance,” the guy said. “But around here, that could be a lot of different things.”

Garber’s office was in the Pentagon, so Reacher caught a ride with two captains who lived at Belvoir but had afternoon shifts in the B-Ring. Garber had a walled-off room all his own, two rings in, two floors up, guarded by a sergeant at a desk outside the door. Who stood up and led Reacher inside, and announced his name, like an old-time butler in a movie. Then the guy sidestepped and began his retreat, but Garber stopped him and said, “Sergeant, I’d like you to stay.”

So the guy did, standing easy, feet planted on the shiny linoleum.

A witness.

Garber said, “Take a seat, Reacher.”

Reacher did, on a visitor chair with tubular legs, which sagged under his weight and tipped him backward, as if a strong wind was blowing.

Garber said, “You have new orders.”

Reacher said, “What and where?”

“You’re going back to school.”

Reacher said nothing.

Garber said, “Disappointed?”

Hence the witness, Reacher supposed. Not a private conversation. Best behavior. He said, “As always, general, I’m happy to go where the army sends me.”

“You don’t sound happy. But you should. Career development is a wonderful thing.”

“Which school?”

“Details are being delivered to your office as we speak.”

“How long will I be gone?”

“That depends on how hard you work. As long as it takes, I guess.”

Reacher got a bus in the Pentagon parking lot and rode two stops to the base of the hill below the Rock Creek HQ. He walked up the slope and went straight to his office. There was a slim file centered on his desk. His name was on it, and some numbers, and a course title: Impact of Recent Forensic Innovation on Inter-Agency Cooperation. Inside were sheets of paper, still warm from the Xerox machine, including a formal notice of temporary detachment to a location that seemed to be a leased facility in a corporate park in McLean, Virginia. He was to report there before five o’clock that afternoon. Civilian dress was to be worn. Residential quarters would be on-site. A personal vehicle would be provided. No driver.

Reacher tucked the file under his arm and walked out of the building. No one watched him go. He was of no interest to anyone. Not anymore. He was a disappointment. An anticlimax. The NCO grapevine had held its breath, and all it had gotten was a meaningless course with a bullshit title. Not exciting at all. So now he was a non-person. Out of circulation. Out of sight, out of mind. Like a ballplayer on the disabled list. A month from then someone might suddenly remember him for a second, and wonder when he was coming back, or if, and then forget him again just as quickly.

The desk sergeant inside the door glanced up, and glanced away, bored.

Reacher had very few civilian clothes, and some of them weren’t really civilian. His off-duty pants were Marine Corps khakis about thirty years old. He knew a guy who knew a guy who worked in a warehouse, where he claimed there was a bale of old stuff wrongly delivered back when LBJ was still president, and then never squared away again afterward. And apparently the point of the story was that old Marine pants looked just like new Ralph Lauren pants. Not that Reacher cared what pants looked like. But five bucks was an attractive price. And the pants were fine. Unworn, never issued, stiffly folded, a little musty, but good for another thirty years at least.

His off-duty T-shirts were no more civilian, being old army items, gone pale and thin with washing. Only his jacket was definitively non-military. It was a tan denim Levi’s item, totally authentic in every respect, including the label, but sewn by an old girlfriend’s mother, in a basement in Seoul.

He changed and packed the rest of his stuff into a duffel and a suit carrier, which he heaved out to the curb, where a black Chevy Caprice was parked. He guessed it was an old MP black-and-white, now retired, with the decals peeled off, and the holes for the light bar and the antennas all sealed up with rubber plugs. The key was in. The seat was worn. But the engine started, and the transmission worked, and the brakes were fine. Reacher swung the thing around like a battleship maneuvering, and headed out toward McLean, Virginia, with the windows down and the radio playing.

The corporate park was one of many, all of them the same, brown and beige, discreet typefaces, neat lawns, some evergreen planting, low two- and three-building campuses spreading outward across empty land, servicing folks who hid behind bland and modest names and tinted glass in their office windows. Reacher found the right place by the street number, and pulled in past a knee-high sign that said Educational Solutions Incorporated, in a typeface so plain it looked childish.

Parked at the door were two more Chevy Caprices. One was black and one was navy blue. They were both newer than Reacher’s. And they were both properly civilian, in that they didn’t have rubber plugs and brush-painted doors. They were government sedans, no doubt about it, clean and shiny, each one with two more antennas than a person needed for listening to the ball game. But the extra two antennas were not the same in both cases. The black car had short needles and the blue car had longer whips, in a different configuration. On a different wavelength. Two separate organizations.

Inter-Agency Cooperation.

Reacher parked alongside, and left his bags in the car. He went in the door, to an empty lobby, which had durable gray carpet underfoot and green potted ferns here and there against the walls. There was a door marked Office. And a door marked Classroom. Which Reacher opened. There was a green chalkboard at the head of the room, and twenty college desks, in four rows of five, each one with a little ledge on the right, for paper and pencil.

Sitting on two of the desks were two guys, both in suits. One suit was black, and one suit was navy blue. Like the cars. Both guys were looking straight ahead, like they had been talking, but had run out of things to say. They were about Reacher’s own age. The one in the black suit was pale with dark hair worn dangerously long for a guy with a government car. The one in the blue suit was pale with colorless hair buzzed short. Like an astronaut. Built like an astronaut, too, or a gymnast not long out of the game.

Reacher stepped in, and they both turned to look.

The dark haired guy said, “Who are you?”

Reacher said, “That depends on who you are.”

“Your identity depends on mine?”

“Whether I tell you or not. Are those your cars outside?”

“Is that significant?”

“Suggestive.”

“How?”

“Because they’re different.”

“Yes,” the guy said. “Those are our cars. And yes, you’re in a classroom with two different representatives of two different government agencies. At cooperation school. Where they’re going to teach us all about how to get along with other organizations. Please don’t tell me you’re from one of them.”

“Military police,” Reacher said. “But don’t worry. I’m sure by five o’clock we’ll have plenty of civilized people here. You can give up on me and get along with them instead.”

The guy with the buzz cut looked up and said, “No, I think we’re it. I think we’re the whole ball game. There are only three bedrooms made up. I took a look around.”

Reacher said, “What kind of a government school has three students only? I never heard of that before.”

“Maybe we’re faculty. Maybe the students live elsewhere.”

The guy with the dark hair said, “Yes, that would make more sense.”

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0804178828
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dell; First Edition (May 9, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780804178822
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0804178822
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.2 x 1.2 x 7.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #24,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #319 in Mystery Action & Adventure
- #1,664 in Murder Thrillers
- #3,419 in Suspense Thrillers

Customer Reviews:
20,678 ratings

About the author

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Lee Child

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Lee Child is one of the world’s leading thriller writers. He was born in Coventry, raised in Birmingham, and now lives in New York. It is said one of his novels featuring his hero Jack Reacher is sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds. His books consistently achieve the number-one slot on bestseller lists around the world and have sold over one hundred million copies. Two blockbusting Jack Reacher movies have been made so far. He is the recipient of many awards, most recently Author of the Year at the 2019 British Book Awards. He was appointed CBE in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Photography © Sigrid Estrada

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

20,678 global ratings

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2 star		4%
1 star		3%

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R. Loe

Wish he understood sentence structure

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 11, 2022

Verified Purchase

Lee Child can weave an interesting tale about Jack Reacher but may drive readers who are familiar with proper sentence structure and use of punctuation to the brink. I know that’s the case for me. I purchased the entire Jack Reacher series of books after seeing the first season of the series. I never would have read so many of his books if I hadn’t already paid for them.
I have often wondered why, with all the money that Lee Child must have brought in from his writing, he can’t seem to afford a staff who will proofread and correct the many mistakes throughout his books. Same goes for his publisher.
I held onto hope with each successive book that he might learn something about writing and make his books easier to read. I hoped, with the addition of his brother on the last couple, that the books would improve but seemed to get only worse. Sometimes, 2 whole pages of back-and-forth banter are written with nothing to occasionally let you know who is speaking, so multiple readings may be needed at times to sort it out. I think almost all, if not all, of the pages have sentences with commas where none are needed, periods where commas are needed, clauses used as sentences, and a new paragraph starting from a clause that belongs in the previous sentence of the preceding paragraph. As I said, hard to read if you understand basic sentence structure.
There are often times where I wish Lee had done one iota of research to get facts right. I refer to passages in the stories where it was apparent that Lee Child had no experience or knowledge; I guess, more or less, the writing is off the top of his head.
Some problems are:
1: He thinks the flashing emergency lights of vehicles in the western states are the same as in much of the New England states (blue on fire trucks and red on police).
2: He didn’t know what the average shoe size in America is actually 10 ½ (stating it as 9)
3: He thinks a large man like Jack Reacher would have what Lee evidently thinks of as a large foot size of 11, instead of something closer to 14 or 15 (I am 6’1” and wear a 13.) I assume Lee has a small foot.
4: Lee has never been near a fast-moving train, thinking there is violent ground movement when the train is even over a mile away and hurricane force winds near one traveling 60 mph.
5: He seems to think that all gas stations and quick marts sell khaki pants and various shirts, packs of socks, and underwear.
6: Jack Reacher can knock anyone unconscious and very often dead with one punch. I can remember only a couple times when it took two.
7: He thinks face bones will “shatter” from a Jack Reacher punch and can knock out a gorilla or even an elephant. Jack also never has injuries to his hand or elbow from such amazing blows.
8: Jack Reacher’s hands are said to be as large as a dinner plate and his fists as large as Thanksgiving turkeys…really?
Yes, his books are hard to read for these and other reasons caused by lack of oversight by his publisher and lack of staff. Please, I hope never to find out he has a staff that lets this stuff through. Good storyteller, other than the lack of research on details and no idea as to sentence/paragraph structure..

Rating would be five for the story.

3 people found this helpful

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skypics234

One of his better plots.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 24, 2023

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The only little thing I could pick on was the statement that bees are nessacery to fertilize plants when they actually propagate and help pollinate.

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Kindle Customer

Lee Child is my favorite guilty pleasure... and reading Reacher never gets old.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 4, 2023

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This book has been out for a while now, so I'm not going to waste my time or yours. If you're a Lee Child/Reacher fan and not living under a rock, you've already read it. And if you're not a fan, you don't deserve to. I would say more, but I've been up all night reading, so I'm kinda tired.

One person found this helpful

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Theo

Is Reacher a hero for our dystopian times?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 8, 2019

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I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about Lee Child, the English writer now living in New York, and his Jack Reacher novels that have received an amazing readership, even among women, who make up approximately 50% of his readers. So I ordered a sample of his books: Night School, The Midnight Line, and Past Tense.

I can understand why both men and women would find his character fascinating. For men, he is the storied loner, a law unto himself, traveling light and constantly on the move meeting adventure after adventure by chance or by design with the added distinction of righting wrongs in the manner of but without the delightful delusions of a Don Quixote. On the basis of these three books, he finds a woman and sex in two of the books I read but in the end leaves the woman because, as they both know, he could never settle down. He is compelled ever onward. He has no car, usually on foot and a hitchhiker, can drive but doesn't (apparently he is a bad driver). He's not fussy about food, as long as it's hearty and well prepared. Travels with the clothes on his back and a folded toothbrush, without even a backpack. He presses his jeans or slacks under the motel's mattress and showers at least once if not twice a day, replacing his clothes as needed. Lives frugally and does not use credit as far as I can discern. Exemplary. A former decorated military policeman in the U.S. Army, recipient of the highest medals, but retired in his thirties, he is an outsize man at 6 feet, 5 inches, with a large broad and muscled body and fists as large as ham hocks, or nearly so so that the description easily fits. And women have something to admire as well: he is interested in and considerate of and aware of the intelligence, talents, and competence of women, erotic and gentle in sexual encounters and not averse to the woman taking the lead, none if which one finds in the overwhelming number of male writers.

Also, he has a fierce sense of right and wrong. He protects the victim, the wronged. In other words, he is a hero. But he protects with overwhelming violence. He kills as a result of threat with impunity as he, in my reading of only three of his books, does not answer to any higher authority. This is the downside of his character and obviously can be the upside as well as the author provides no others to right the wrongs. He is insightful and experienced with a calculating mind, with a mind almost like a computer (rather a hard to believe conceit on the part of the author where he describes Reacher calculating in the most minute detail in a few seconds Number and position of villains and helpers, distances, probabilities, access and egress) and what might be described as listening to his intuitive brain. He doesn't set out to kill; indeed, he is polite and well spoken to a fault, courteous and capable of great kindness, attempts to avoid violence whenever he can, hopes to intimidate by size, stance, tone of voice, directness of vision. He goes out of his way to avoid violence, but invariably encounters it in each of the novels and indeed there would be no story without the violence. Not a technician himself, the stories dwell upon the apparatus of a tech-obsessed society and their usage by villains as well as policing agencies. Reacher is not a psychopath, although he deals with psychopaths in his travels and he has a gift for making an impression (how could he not?) and in the course of the novels he comes in contact with a number of interesting and appealing human beings, in or out of the policing agencies.

As a former television director, Child has written the books like film scripts. As such, they can be boring in passages and these can be quickly skimmed over. Direct, declarative sentences provide a quick but not a memorable reading experience, except in the sense that violence is assaultive and assaults unfortunately stay with you. In the end the books provide an aftertaste not of the triumph of good over evil (and his villains are evil) but of the depressing regularity of evil and the complete non-necessity of doing anything differently to overcome it except the methods provided by the military, the police and other policing agencies. On the other hand, good on the part of good people also exists in his novels.

Judging by these three books, social commentary is kept oblique for the most part and except as implicit in the description of the actions of his villains. He reveres the U.S. military and in the three novels I read does not question its premises and activities in the world: There are indeed decent people in all our policing agencies but the overall ethic or lack thereof of these institutions makes it difficult for people to retain their ethics and autonomy because they are by nature hierarchical and authoritarian and one's salary depends upon following orders and those orders are not always ethical. Then too in all institutions CYA is prevalent if not commonplace, this Reacher himself realizes fully. So his reverence I believe is misplaced and at odds with the reality of what the military and policing and surveillance agencies regularly get up to in both nondemocratic societies and those that purport to be democratic but in reality are not. The authoritarian nature and secrecy and impunity of operation and failure to answer to public accountability of such agencies make them the antithesis of what is needed in a properly functioning democracy. It isn't that such agencies can never function properly in a democracy. It is just that they rarely if ever do. Are Child's villains the only villains? The only psychopaths? Is he the hero we need for our dystopian times? Only as a last resort. We should first instill nonviolence in ourselves, our children, and our institutions and use violence only as a last resort instead of our first response for any circumstance. We can never rid ourselves of evil and of course must be willing to fight it, but must always remember at what cost and who suffers and be able to discern who actually wins and who actually loses by the methods we employ.

3 people found this helpful

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Stephen W Laws II

Jack Reacher is at it again

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 14, 2023

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Another Jack Reacher throwback. We see Jack doing what he does best while outshining everyone else. He's not alone, but he's the star.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 23, 2022

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Great story, doesn’t need the explicit sex!

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JoJo

Sorry but this one is boring

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 25, 2016

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Not the style of the Reacher books I have come to love. Sorry but this was actually a bit boring. It picked up a bit at the end but wasn't a patch on the other stories. Reacher is a man of action - this book had him doing too little. Hope this isn't a sign of things to come. Very disappointed having been waiting for this book to come out.

54 people found this helpful

jaydee999

Maybe Lee needs to go back to writing night school?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 4, 2017

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I'm a recent "recruit" to Jack Reacher novels, but I've now read every one. I don't think that this was one of Lee Child's best. To my mind, this effort bears all the hallmarks of writing a book with the intention of it hopefully being bought up for the big screen.
1. A European city for location (not the back of beyond in USA), and involvement in a global incident
2. Sex scenes. Not Lee's writing strength at all in my opinion, but a requisite element of most Hollywood films these days. And gives an good director a chance to show off his artistic skills. In earlier books, I don't recall him always bedding a woman. In the later books, it has become a certainty, like James Bond.
3. Uneccesary bestiality scene. I'm no prude, but it seemed to be there to add some Hollywood shock factor, rather than be an integral part of the story.
4. A large group of key players, giving the chance to assemble a stellar cast.
5. Reacher as self-imposed judge, jury, and executioner. Yes, Reacher kills, but this time his murders seem almost gratuitous, and somewhat out of character. Far better when he badly hurts the transgressors. In this book, I felt he was little better than the "baddies" from a moral standpoint.

I'm not sure how I felt about him working as part of a team that he wasn't in charge of. In some ways it highlights his maverick nature, which I like, but I suspect it was necessary to create a situation where he could be involved in such a potentially global incident.
For a book hoping to be turned into a film, there was surprisingly little "action" for Reacher. I'm sure this was a disappointment for many readers.
I didn't find the plot as boring as some reviewers, nor as riveting as others.
Overall, I would put this on a par with other thriller novels I have read, whereas the best Reacher novels stand head and shoulders above the rest, with a twist or development to every chapter end that makes you want to move on to the next. This wasn't the case for me with this book.

One final point. I know Lee Child has defended the choice of Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, and has even gone so far as to say that it isn't easy to find an actor that fits his stature. One thing's for sure. Tom Cruise is the antithesis of Jack Reacher, whatever his acting abilities. I refuse to believe that there isn't a decent actor out there, who would be a better fit, physically.

20 people found this helpful

Beth W

So bored I gave up half way through

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 31, 2017

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I've read every one of Lee Child's books and mostly thoroughly enjoyed them, especially the early ones. But this one was nowhere near the same standard, so much so that I struggled to get half way through before thinking life's too short to persevere with such a tedious book. I got to the stage where I didn't care what happened. The plot was weak, it plodded at a snail's pace and got bogged down in repetition and minor detail. A few times I got lost in the long passages of dialogue, often having to reread to make sense of who said what. So for the first time in any LC novel I've given up half way through as I was bored of it. Unfortunately I think Reacher has had a good run and should now retire. Anyone who has loved Child/Reacher but has had enough, I can suggest the following which I've found gripping. They are more military in subject matter and gory in parts but the pace is great, the stories strong, and the characters interesting.

Tom Cain's Samuel Carver
Will Jordan's Ryan Drake
Andy McNab's Nick Stone
Chris Ryan's Danny Black
Tom Wood's Victor the assassin

15 people found this helpful

Crosseyedbear

Not enough elbow!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 13, 2016

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Did not grab my interest as much as some Jack Reacher books. Agree with previous comments. Bestiality scenes totally unnecessary best left out. The thread was disjointed. Not in usual Lee Childs style (I've read them all). Good tale but too much description, not enough action, and like Tom Cruise, it's not really Jack Reacher.

26 people found this helpful

Annabelle

Dreadful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 25, 2022

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Yes 2 stars ! I’m really 100% a Jack Reacher fan and had read 20 books before this one. I started off being delighted that it was a story from his army days. Sergeant Neagle is with him and it’s going to be a great story. Except it isn’t . The writing is laboured and boring. You can’t just throw in a couple of fights and a bit of sex to make it a good Jack Reacher story. It is full of stereotypes and unnecessary sex scenes including a near pornographic one set in a German night club. Did Lee Child really write this ? I assume he did so it’s the end of the road for me . That will be the last one I read .

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