We have reviewed several Jack Reacher stories earlier by this author. See Gone Tomorrow or Nothing to Lose for two examples. Let us dive into the story now.
A lawyer goes to visit his client in prison. The prisoner is completely bald, fully chained and seems to be mentally deficient. He utters from memory a lot of legalese which the lawyer memorizes.
On the way back, he is talking – relaying the instructions – to an accomplice of the prisoner on the cell phone. His car skids, and gets into the path of an oncoming tourist bus. He corrects it on time and moves on, but the bus tried to avoid him simultaneously and on the icy road, it was not so lucky. It gets into an accident. One of the passengers traveling in it aimlessly is our Jack Reacher.
The accident cripples the bus and they wait, shivering, for the cop to arrive. The cop who came seems to be after something bigger and asks everyone to prove who they are, where they are going, and whether they can show him the hotel reservations. Reacher wonders why.
Slowly, Reacher comes to know that someone is sending messages through word of mouth. Since the big criminal’s lawyer is fully watched, he guesses that the prime suspect is terrorizing another criminal and makes him send word through his lawyer, who is not watched. The only witness to topple the drug scheme (because that is what it was) is a teacher and librarian, aged, living alone, who refuses to move into anonymity through a witness protection program.
Meanwhile Plato, a druglord, who is safe in Mexico City orders elimination of the lawyer (loose end) and the sole witness. Reacher meets the woman and even stays in her house. Meanwhile he goes to visit a biker gang who they suspect deal in drugs but have never compromised themselves so far. Pure Reacher style. Short staccato sentences and guesswork but not much of action in most of the book – an unusual first for a Reacher book.
There is a red herring where the driver of the bus reacher was in was arrested in the vicinity of the area where the lawyer died, with a gun that had recently been fired. But he is just a disgruntled driver who let off steam by shooting at a road sign (in a town where many signs are routinely riddled with bullets – wait, what? – and so is let off.
The story is one of interminable wait, a surprise that comes from the usually action packed style of Lee Child in his Jack Reacher novels. So, it is interesting? Definitely not. A lot of hurrying up and waiting while guessing what a remote concrete bunker is being used for is definitely testing your patience to the limit.
The biker group suddenly leaves and then Racher, and two policemen figure out where the key is hidden and go get it. Go into the bunker.
When Anderson, the aspiring Chief, is shot, it gets serious. Reacher and Holland realize that the man on the ground is a compromised cop. (We have our suspicions, of course).
There are some surprises; the one where Reacher knows he has failed to save the cop whom he liked and also the main witness from being murdered – and then goes into despondency so deep that he just wants to give it all up. This is not like Reacher and when he has a frank phone conversation with a female cop Susan whom he has never met, it becomes interesting.
The last fifty or so pages are spectacular, but what did you expect in a Jack Reacher novel?
The title is sexy and implies a deadline that everyone knows about. However, without giving much away, I can say that this is very misleading in this book.
Though the story kind of ends neatly, there is the tantalizing note saying ‘to be continued’ at the end. Intriguing. Sure there are some lose ends like what happens to Susan, whom Reacher never met and the details of Reacher’s final escape but I guess that is reserved for the second part of the story. Typically I am annoyed when a story is abruptly stopped because a second part is coming and the author wants us to buy and read that too. (For instance Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz which we have reviewed earlier). But in this case, the story is fully self contained and you can skip the sequel if you so choose, and therefore the book is fully satisfying.
All in all a very tame Reacher – by the normal high standards of Reacher books. Still readable. But since nothing at all happens much of the time, I will restrict it to a 6/10, earned mostly for the last part of the book.
== Krishna
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