Never Go Back

Starred review from July 29, 2013
Since talking to Maj. Susan Turner on the telephone from South Dakota in 2010’s 61 Hours (bestseller Childs’s 14th Jack Reacher novel), the former military cop has been heading to the Virginia headquarters of his old unit, the 110th MP, in hopes of meeting her. In this 18th outing, Reacher finally arrives in Virginia, where his plan to meet Turner is initially thwarted by thugs who want to keep them apart. An arrest for a crime Reacher doesn’t remember committing 16 years earlier and the dangled bait that he might be a father provoke him to run, kicking off a cross-country odyssey. As usual, head-busting physicality and analytical problem solving play key roles in Reacher’s fight to prove his innocence and expose his enemies. Manhunts on both coasts, a link to corruption in Afghanistan in the wake of the U.S. military drawdown, and the possibility for romance between Reacher and Turner make this entry one of the best in the series. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary.

October 28, 2013
Back in Child’s 14th book about Jack Reacher (61 Hours), the amazingly self-sufficient, peripatetic ex-MP began thumbing his way from South Dakota to Virginia to meet Maj. Susan Turner, the CO of his old unit. It’s taken him three more adventures, but he’s finally made it and—no surprise—finds a mess of trouble instead of the major. Not only has she gone missing, he is immediately dragged back into the Army, facing a court martial for a crime he supposedly committed 16 years earlier. Dick Hill’s voice has a properly hardboiled timbre that fits perfectly with Child’s fast-flowing prose. It carries the insouciant, mildly sardonic attitude of a tough guy so aware of his capabilities that nothing intimidates or surprises him. Also of note are Hill’s well-tuned voices of villainy, from the sarcastic, overconfident bullies who try using physical force on Reacher to the cold, demanding master schemers who call themselves Romeo and Juliet. By piling troubles on his noble hero and handing him a particularly knotty puzzle to solve, Child has delivered a superior series entry and Hill’s rendition adds another level of enjoyment to the mayhem and mystery. A Delacorte hardcover.

Starred review from July 1, 2013
Jack Reacher pokes a head into his old D.C. office, and things promptly go ballistic. Reacher wants to get a gander at Maj. Susan Turner, his successor as head of the 100th Military Police Special Unit. But she's been sent to Afghanistan, he's told, and he'll have to deal with her temporary replacement, Lt. Col. Morgan. Morgan's idea of dealing with Reacher is to accuse him of beating Juan Rodriguez to death 16 years ago and shortly afterward fathering Samantha, a 14-year-old whose mother, Candice Dayton, is now looking for child support. To make sure Reacher doesn't run off, as he's certainly wont to do (A Wanted Man, 2012, etc.), Morgan recalls him to active Army service and restricts him to a five-mile radius surrounding the building. Naturally, things promptly get worse. A pair of thugs offer to beat Reacher to a pulp if he doesn't go AWOL. Maj. Turner turns out to be in jail, not Afghanistan. And when her lawyer, Col. Moorcroft, is beaten into a coma a few hours after one of Reacher's own lawyers--Capt. Helen Sullivan, the one handling the Rodriguez charge--witnesses Reacher's fraught meeting with Moorcroft, Reacher is escorted to an adjoining cell in the same building. But Reacher, never one to let temporary reversals get him down, escapes from jail, taking Turner with him, and sets out to escape the District, rustle up some cash and some wheels, elude the two thugs (now four) who remain in hot pursuit, and hightail it to L.A. to satisfy himself as to whether Samantha Dayton really is his daughter. Any questions? For the pure pleasure of uncomplicated, nonstop action, no one touches Reacher, who accurately observes that "I trained myself...to turn fear into aggression."

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September 15, 2013

After trekking back from the savage snowstorms of South Dakota, Jack Reacher finally returns to his old military police unit, eager to meet Maj. Susan Turner, the new commanding officer who helped him save the trapped victims in 61 Hours. However, Reacher finds out that Turner is under investigation for corruption and is awaiting trial for conspiracy. And that's not all. The army drafts him back into service to face two trumped-up legal cases--homicide charges for assaulting an L.A. gangbanger for selling black-market weapons and a paternity suit from a former girlfriend alleging that Reacher fathered her 14-year-old daughter. Both parties are simply after his money. Harnessing his anger and brute strength, Reacher cunningly defends himself, promising to "never go back." VERDICT As they snatch up Reacher's 18th adventure, avid fans in more than 95 countries will again marvel at Child's terse, hard-boiled style. [See Prepub Alert, 3/11/13.]--Jerry P. Miller. Cambridge, MA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2013
Jack Reacher, the loner thumbing his way through life, despises entanglements. So what could he possibly be doing going back to his old barracks in Washington, D.C., to take a woman to dinner? Yes, the woman, Major Susan Turner, is now the C.O. of Reacher's former unit, and, yes, he liked her voice when he talked to her on the phone in 61 Hours (2010), but, really, Reacher, what were you thinking? Naturally, when Reacher arrives on the base to ask Turner out, he discovers a whopping messand lands in the middle of it. Turner is in the brig, and the army promptly arrests Reacher on what seems to be a trumped-up charge involving a case from decades ago. And what's this about Reacher having a daughter, of all things, whose mother is suing for child support? None of it makes sense, except that somehow it must all tie together. Nothing to do but break out of the brig, with Turner in tow, and set things right, which requires a cross-country road trip, more than a little rough stuff, and a whole lot of fretting about entanglements. Child never, ever slips. He keeps the action cranking better than anyone, but, best of all, he keeps us guessing about Reacher. Will he, of all people ( Ninety-nine of us grow up to fear the howling wolf, and one grows up to envy it. I'm that guy. ), really hang up his toothbrush (his only traveling accoutrement) this time? Child has spent 17 novels committing his hero to the call of the wild, and now he dangles a dinner date and a possible daughter in front of the howling wolf? Brilliant. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Published in nearly 40 countries and more than 70 languages with more than 70 million copies in print, the Jack Reacher series is a publishing phenomenon and won't go away anytime soon.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)