The Hard Way (2006)

By Lee Child
If you were in a tight spot and you could call anyone in the world, living or dead, real or unreal, anyone at all to help you out, who would you call? Miss Marple? Ha! MacGyver? Ha! Ha! Batman? Don’t make me laugh. Let me tell you who I’D call – Jack Reacher, that’s who. You wanna know why? Well for starters, he’s a six foot something ex-military policeman who knows his guns, ammo and the most effective places to punch people, AND quite attractive and incredibly buff, but mainly because he’s a GODDAMN GENIUS. Sherlock Holmes has got nothing on Reacher’s powers of deduction, let me tell you. Jack Reacher is the ultimate blend of brains and brawn.

OK, I confess, I’ve read all the Jack Reacher novels, and this is the latest. So I’m a fan. Reacher left the army many years ago and kind of drifts around the US, solving all the problems which invariably and incredibly coincidentally drop in his lap. (He’s not unlike Miss Marple in that way). Also, he sleeps with a different woman in every book – strange how women seem to find Reacher completely irresistible. Were these books written by a man? Let me check…

In this adventure he becomes involved with a group of ex-US-military mercenaries – the wife of the boss mercenary has been kidnapped, and Reacher just happened to witness a critical piece of evidence in the whole deal. It was a bit slow to get going, but by golly pretty soon I was hooked. Every so often when reading one of Reacher’s adventures it crosses my mind that this is all a bit far-fetched (the start of this novel, for example), but usually I’m enjoying the book too much to care. Maybe don’t read several in a row though; the plot devices and even Reacher's own infallible geniusness start to wear a bit thin.

Also I had a moment of unease near the end of the book where Lee Child writes that “…the remorse gene was missing from his DNA. Entirely. It just wasn’t there.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this may make Jack Reacher a registered and card-carrying sociopath – let’s just be glad he’s on our side.

Rating: 7 out of 10