This is another Jack Reacher book. One thought before we launch into the review : Unlike other authors we normally review who have a series with central characters (Take Anne Perry, Jeffery Deaver, Agatha Christie, Bernard Cornwell to name just a few), an overwhelming majority of what Lee Child has written is about Jack Reacher. Even that he got bored writing and tried to give it away to others to continue.
But in this series, we have been reviewing the books in order and the last two we reviewed are Nothing To Lose & Bad Luck And Trouble.
Let us go on with the story.
Jack Reacher is in a New York subway and is looking for the telltale signs of a suicide bomber. He is on the lookout for a woman and thinks he has spotted her.
However, it turns out that she was just a person contemplating suicide. In front of Jack, she blows her own head off. The train is stopped and doors locked and everyone, including Jack, wait until the police arrive. The police officer is a youngish woman and she interviews Jack as to what happened.
He is detained to be interviewed by some Federal Agency. After hearing that the lady did not say anything to Reacher or pass anything to him, they let him go. When he gets out, four people try to stop him to ask questions, but Reacher refuses to talk, shows them that he cannot be roughed about, and leaves. But then the brother of the dead woman, called Jacob Mark, meets him and tells Reacher that the girl ‘did not commit suicide’. Intrigued, Reacher takes him to a coffee shop to talk.
The girl who died was Susan Mark. They were both of Greek origin.
He learns that Lila Hoth was a Ukrainian beauty who was with her mother Svetlana Hoth. He learns that they are after a military man with the first name John. Their initial story is that the “John” guy was kind to the mother and so they want to thank him but the real story comes out – A very new Soviet weapon was taken from Svetlana’s husband (a sniper) and – this is the reason for their rage – both the husband and Lila’s brother were given over to the local women to be tortured for hours and killed. The mother was hearing their screams for almost a day.
They now want justice. (Even now they say that they just want to meet the man and ask ‘Why?’).
John Sansom seems to fit the bill. He is a politician running for high office and had won three medals of the highest honour. His biographical book that he penned does not explain what he got the medals for.
Reacher goes to warn him of the danger he is in.
The story moves on and Lila and Svetlana are exposed as working for Afghan terrorists. When Lila’s cover is blown, she sends a shocking CD of her torturing and murdering two people, one a cab driver from Kabul who was an American collaborator and second, Mark’ son, with gruesome ferocity, mainly executed by Svetlana, the silent older woman.
Sansom’s deputy, Springer, allies with Reacher to find and stop them. Springer notes that Reacher is angry and warns him that this is exactly what the evil people want : to get him angry so that they can lure him to their place of choice and execute him.
Reacher finally learns that there is a real memory stick (and he now thinks he knows where) and it does really contain explosive information of the army consorting with Osama Bin Laden (during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when US allied with the Mujahideen group of Afghanistan as allies against the Soviet Union) and supplied arms and money and everything they asked for.
The Hoths have disappeared from the place where Reacher guessed they were holed up. Now he gets help from Sansom (gun, knife and ammunition) and goes to find them. One man against about thirteen men plus Svetlana and Lila, two vicious killers. Now we have a perfect setting for an action packed ending, Lee Child style!
He guesses where Lila is holed up and sensing his nearness, Lila calls him. He makes a deal with her for seventy five thousand dollars and lures his seven people into a trap with NYPD undercover with them. However, the Feds show up since they probably tapped the line to NYPD and try to arrest Reacher. With full ammunition still hidden on him!
He escapes using a spectacular technique (Will not spoil it for you in case you plan to read the book).
Then he goes to the hotel and talks to the man again, roughing him up a bit. He learns that Lila and crew have moved off as soon as he was there last time. He then guesses where Lila is – no not a weird guess but uses what Lila had told him earlier. OK, I need to digress here : he argues his way logically to answers but in real life there is a much much higher chance of going astray. In the novels though, he is spot on and for the sake of a thriller novel that pays only lip service to reality, you can overlook these. But sure, there is a logic in his guessing where Lila and her team are holed up.
He then uses brilliantly – Lila calls him to renegotiate – to confirm that his guess is correct and then in pure Reacher style, starts taking out the enemies with stealth, surprise and sped. Pure action, explosive, fully entertaining.
But of course even till the very end, there are surprises and Jack almost gets killed. The surprise comes almost too late.
All in all, an enjoyable read, simplistic and loose ends are all tied at the very end.
8/10
— Krishna
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