As Jack Reacher walks along a deserted highway in Arizona he stumbles across a Jeep that has crashed into the only tree for miles around. The occupant, a woman, appears to be unconscious, possibly dead. Reacher decides that he should check if the woman needs help and ends up with a gun pointed at him for his troubles. The woman, Michaela Fenton, has staged the crash to try and capture the people who are holding her brother hostage. Thankfully this is just the kind of situation that Reacher likes to get involved in.
This is the 26th Reacher novel and has everything that fans know and love about our antihero. The action from Reacher is the usual slow and understated style; minimal expenditure of effort, don't give your opponents a chance to get back up. More than once Reacher gives his opponents the chance to walk away from the fight, luckily for the reader they never do.
The villain of the piece, Waad Dendoncker, is thoroughly evil. He has a small town close to the Mexican border terrorised. Both locals and his henchmen would rather commit suicide than risk upsetting Dendoncker because of the retribution they will suffer if they fail him. Obviously this doesn't sit well with Reacher.
The opening chapter is a bit of a surprise and you certainly do wonder where the story is going to go. Pieces then fall in to place and we have a tale involving smuggling, bombs and chemical weapons.
Modern technology does throw a few obstacles in Reacher's path - QR codes to open locks, fingerprint and facial recognition for mobile phones. Ever resourceful Reacher has a way to overcome those obstacles.
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