Krishna
We have reviewed many Jack Reacher books here before. The three earlier examples are Without Fail, Echo Burning and Running Blind.
The story starts with heart pounding action from the first paragraph.
Two tough guys try to kidnap a man going in a car by sabotaging it, and take the guy to their car. The narrator, Reacher, takes out the car and kills them both but also kills by mistake a cop who had come to investigate.
When security guys from the building come up towards his car, he escapes after damaging the car with gunshot. He explains to the kid that even if it was an accident, he could not get himself arrested because he killed a cop. The kid is Richard Beck and says that people have tried to kidnap him before because he is the son of a rich oriental carpet merchant.
When Richard convinces Reacher against his will to take him to his house and his wife thanks Reacher for saving the son. When Reacher gets into the guest bedroom, he sends a message ‘I am in’.
Turns out that the entire drama is a plot to get into the good graces of Richard and planned to install Reacher into the Beck household because, Richard Beck’s father is a notorious gang leader and the FBI is interested in evidence against him. He is working with FBI Agents Duffy and xxx on the latter’s request – the motive is to penetrate Zachary Beck’s fortress-like residence. Reacher wants to find Quinn and they want evidence of Zachary’s doings as well as find a missing agent believed to be kidnapped by him.
He meets the notorious Zachary Beck. Passes the test where he has to play Russian Roulette with a gun and is assigned to Duke, who is his deputy.
He finds out that Duke and the other deputy Cole (huge due to steroids but seems stupid) both hate him – Duke because he ‘killed a cop’ and Cole because he was a military officer in the past.
They give him his first solo drive (‘get this van to a particular place and bring another back but do not look into what it is carrying’) he suspects that he is being tracked. He indeed finds the tracker and gives it to Duffy ‘to ‘carry it at the regular speed’.
When a newcomer, who is suspicious of Reacher confronts him with evidence about the Mazda he used, he kills him and stuffs him into the trunk of Beck’s car and collects the gun of that man – he had also borrowed a Glock from Duffy earlier.
He finds a way to slip out of his locked room and arranges through Duffy for a car to be kept outside. She is asking him to abort but he decides to stay.
He is asked to take Mrs Beck shopping to get her out of the way for ‘shipping day’.
But Paulie openly assaults her in front of Reacher. Reacher learns that Zachary, a bad man no doubt, still is ‘owned’ by a much worse man who is Paulie’s direct boss. And the lady has been abused for a long time and is expected to bear it with equanimity.
When his stash of the guns go missing, he finds that the maid had been found with it, and a communication device in the shoe and she is tortured and murdered. He realizes that she was an agent too and is upset that he was not informed. Duffy is puzzled too and realizes that FBI had gone behind her back and put in another agent.
When they go next to a bungalow where the ‘traitors’ were hiding, Beck sends Reacher and Duke. Duke is killed by Reacher who stages “an ambush” and goes back to Beck to take him safely back. He is hired as the head of security by Beck.
When the agents who were kept in custody had to be released, Duffy managed to switch off all phones for about 4 hours. Guessing what it is, Reacher goes in the Saab to check it out and meets a federal agent. They ambush and silently kill the two bodyguards who were coming back to warn Beck and then Reacher returns, earning full trust of Beck for ‘cautious check out’ to protect the family.
A different kind of story altogether from the previous episodes. The style – the surprise, the short staccato narration are all there but the story is totally different.
This is all action and repeated action. Even when you think that the main guy is done for, we have layers and layers of further complications and resolutions.
Jack Reacher comes to the end of endurance in many scenes and thinks that his goose is cooked. When he faces the steroid pumped giant Paulie and then when he takes a dive in the sea with its deadly tides….
Great to read; you see the James Bond like skills of Reacher in this.
Good to its explosive end.
7/10
= = Krishna