We have reviewed many of the Jack Reacher books in this space. Please see The Hard Way or The Enemy for two examples. You know what to expect when you read a Reacher novel so let us dive straight into the story.
Calvin Franz, both legs broken, is loaded on a stretcher and into a helicopter. This contains a pilot and a navigator behind, apart from Calvin. A third man comes in and gets into the seat near the pilot, and on his orders, the helicopter goes into the middle of the desert and, from a height of 3000 feet, drops Calvin (without the stretcher) from the air – to his certain death.
Reacher is given a secret message to call his old colleague from the military because she needs his help. He does. The lady Neagley, asks him to ‘find her in LA’ through an assistant and he does. Using his logic (Which in real life is so full of holes that he would be wandering for years before he finds her but Reacher stories think that one way of logical thinking is the only way available so he is always amazingly successful).
Anyway Neagley asks him to investigate the death of Calvin Franz, who was found dead in the middle of the desert with no track marks of any vehicles around him. So they guess he was dropped from air.
They go and meet the widow and Reacher realizes that she is holding something back. She swears that she is telling all she knows about Franz and his work, and Reacher believes her. They are being tailed all along by two different people – reporting to two different groups. Once Reacher notices a car twice and is briefly suspicious but concludes it is probably nothing. When they try to visit Franz’s office (with the key given by the widow) they find that it has been taken apart.
Even more surprising is that they cannot reach any of their colleagues of old. Strangely not even one of them return their call after their repeated voice messages! This creates a huge surprise and suspicion in the minds of Reacher and Neagley.
By inductive reasoning (there you go again!) they realize that the smaller key is to a mailbox in the same building and they go and retrieve a set of envelopes with secure USB data which (somehow they know) will erase itself after three tries. They struggle with all those and have only one password left and get discouraged and leave it to try later.
Meanwhile, one of their ex colleagues David O’Donnell manages to track them down. Now they are three against an unknown person who has managed to find and eliminate – supposedly – all of their other colleagues.
They go in search. First is Swan, in whose home office, they break in and find the dog dead – presumably died of thirst since Swan left for some short trip but never came back.
They collect one more ex colleague but you then start getting impatient as a reader. They are poring over mysterious numbers and doing practically nothing. Lots of arguments; lot of bravado; Reacher worrying about being arrested for cop busting. But nothing much ever happens. Oh, and Carla Dixon, the new member of the now-four group and Reacher have sex. Why? Because the book needs to have Reacher performing physically, mentally and sexually in each of the books. This time it is Dixon.
They go investigating and making smart guesses about the seemingly random numbers they got from the smart drive they got.
They realize that the whole thing leads to Vegas and then move there. In the meanwhile, the kingpin who calls himself by several names -Azhari Mahmoud being probably the real one but Andrew MacBride and several other names with the same initials as fake identities – is in Vegas. His lookout informs him that the ‘four’ are getting close and is told that the time has come to take them out. But before the man can even plan, he learns that they have left for Vegas. Azhari is delighted because that is the place where they can be easily taken out. They in the meanwhile deduce that this is all related to a massive casino scam. The security chief in one of these is an ex Marine and is surprised that this has been going on under his nose!
In the meanwhile the man who reported to Azhari finds the four of them in daylight in a Vegas deserted street. Facing away, unaware of him. Delighted, he calls and tells Azhari that he has found them. The boss asks him just to kill them all and get the problem solved. He draws the pistol and removes the safety catch. What follows is pure thrill – the kind you have come to expect in Reacher novels. Brilliant action follows and the surprised killer is unable to finish his commission – could not even get one of them. But in this book, the action comes so late in the story that you are left wondering if he was trying to drag it out until now.
They catch up with Jorge Swan’s girlfriend who tells them that aaa got a call from Calvin before he disappeared. She takes them to Swan’s office in Vegas which was also similarly trashed like his home. The trashers seemed to be doing more than just searching – there was anger deducible in the wanton destruction.
Swan and Orozco had offices in Vegas. The girlfriend was able to tell them only that they both had their business tanking due to lack of jobs when suddenly they were called upon to work. She did not know who called them but suggested that Orozco’s wife might.
They finally figure out where Snow’s office was and crash into it in a burst of action. They know they have exactly two minutes before someone comes over to investigate and they split and collect as much material as they can.
They then go back and figure out where the manufacturing plant producing armament is. They realize that the whole thing is about a new kind of attack drone that can drop in on planes from above – a brand new technology. This has been the target of Azhari and he has bribed enough folks to call many of them defective and get his hands on them. He belongs to a terrorist group but falsely pretends to be from Pakistan and promises the folks he has corrupted that he will not use them in the USA but only to attack their archenemy, India – by attacking the latter’s planes. Another lie.
Meanwhile Reacher and friends corner the HR lady Berenson and learn of the plot for the armaments. She is under duress from Laimison who is threatening her son if she spills the beans. They safely evacuate her to a hotel ‘until this is cleaned up’.
Then they go in search of the culprits but the detective Curtis Mauny, who was in touch with them and giving them information about the case, calls them. They all go, but Reacher and Neagley get stuck in traffic. When they are late Neagley’s friend from the police gives them the information that Curtis and Laimison were buddies in the army! They were being led into a trap and both O’Donnell and Dixon were now captured!
So they were just two against maybe eight people, not knowing if their colleagues were alive or not. They decide to take on these odds.
From that point onwards, it is pure adrenalin. When they realize that the place where they have been kept (the factory, which they find out by clever sleuthing) is protected by impregnable walls and wire, Reacher comes up with a fabulous plan to get in. They find and ‘take care’ of the four guards first, then Curtis Mauny. Then Reacher tells Neagley that they will have to get out and has her drive away fast. And stays behind.
What follows is further terrific action until almost the very last page.
My only complaint is that the book takes a while to take off. But then it is great stuff – for the last quarter or so.
6/10
==Krishna
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