Make Me

Starred review from July 27, 2015
Bestseller Child’s superb 20th Jack Reacher novel (after 2014’s Personal) begins with the disposal of the body of someone named Keever, with a backhoe in a hog pen near an almost-forgotten town in the Midwest called Mother’s Rest, which Reacher decides to visit (as he points out, he has “no place to go, and all the time in the world to get there”). The mystery deepens dramatically after he meets Michelle Chang, who’s looking for her PI colleague: Keever. Reacher and Chang make a formidable team faced with a formidable challenge: finding out what happened to Keever, the only clue a cryptic note that reads “200 deaths.” The investigation takes the two from Mother’s Rest to Chicago, Arizona, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley—and to the Internet’s netherworld, the “Deep Web.” What they discover is beyond gruesome and almost beyond belief—it’s decidedly not for the faint of heart—but Child’s complete command of the story makes this thriller work brilliantly. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary.

August 1, 2015
In this 20th installment of Child's action series (Personal, 2014, etc.), Jack Reacher ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time-perfectly positioning him to unravel a missing person mystery and save the day. Living on the road with his toothbrush in his pocket, ex-military policeman/all-around-hero Reacher is wending his way across the country by train when he alights at Mother's Rest on a whim, curious about the origin of the name. Instead of the expected historical marker, he finds a bunch of unfriendly townspeople and ex-FBI agent/PI Michelle Chang, who's searching for a missing colleague. Drawn irrevocably to both Chang and the mystery, Reacher fights to uncover the truth behind Mother's Rest-a truth that involves the so-called "Deep Web," the dark undercover space of the Internet. Reacher and Chang traverse the country from Oklahoma to Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in their quest for answers. The final showdown reveals that the crimes of Mother's Rest are more sinister and terrible than they ever imagined. Despite (or maybe because of) the expected Reacher-novel formula, this series remains as compulsively readable as ever. Child is a master of pacing, stretching out the mystery through short chapters that give rise to bursts of well-choreographed violence. Sentences are choppy, dialogue is fast, yet there is authenticity to Reacher's world, too. While the mystery is rather shallowly sketched in between the fight sequences, the setting is effectively bland, and the ending makes one feel true horror at the ways of men. Of course, the biggest strength is Reacher himself: impassive, analytical, secretly romantic, and relentlessly honorable. It's impossible not to root for him and his lady friend of the moment-and Chang, to be fair, is tough, if not multidimensional. Jack Reacher is still going strong. Will satisfy fans-and newcomers, too.

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Starred review from August 1, 2015
Just when you think the newer fellas, like Patrick Lee, are gaining on Child in the adrenaline-driven-thriller sweepstakes, the reigning champ ups the ante. It starts with an idle question: Why would a nothing town, in the middle of endless Oklahoma wheat fields, be named Mother's Rest? Being a curious guy, Jack Reacher gets off a Chicago-bound train to find out. No one seems to know the answer, but the locals, an odd sort who appear to have walked off the set of Bad Day at Black Rock, get a little twitchy when Reacher approaches them. Then he encounters an intriguing woman named Chang, a former FBI agent turned PI, who is trying to find her partner. Reacher joins forces with her, and so begins another Childean rampage across the countrythe partner's trail takes them to Phoenix, Chicago, San Francisco, and back to wheat countrywith the pair pursued by all manner of roughnecks, some cornpone, some polished, but all potentially lethal. Yes, there's breakneck action, but what gives this one its zing is the multilayered plot, which probes the nefarious digital doings on the Deep Web to uncover, well, something very, very bad indeed. (It starts online, but it ends up with backhoes and feral hogs.) The beguiling Chang offers a new treat for series fans as well, and a surprise at the end will keep readers short of breath until the next installment begins, which will at least give the pretenders to Child's throne a little time to regroup.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Reacher novels typically debut number one on the The New York Times best-seller list. End of story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2015

Out there, where the train stops once a day, the small town of Mother's Rest awaits Jack Reacher. He thinks he'll be dropping in for a day during his desultory travels, but the suspicious townsfolk, the note about 200 deaths, and the woman awaiting a missing private investigator suggest otherwise. Reacher is on his 20th outing.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 26, 2015
Jack Reacher number 20 (after last year’s Personal) begins with the disposal of the body of someone named Keever, with a backhoe in a hog pen near a town in the Midwest called Mother’s Rest, which Reacher decides to visit (as he points out, he has “no place to go, and all the time in the world to get there”). Almost immediately, he bumps into a beautiful, smart-talking damsel in distress, Michelle Chang, who’s looking for her PI colleague: Keever. It should come as no surprise to Child’s vast readership that Reacher and Chang will join forces to solve the mystery of Mother’s Rest, and that it will involve danger, violence, some romance, snappy dialogue, sharp plotting, and lots of travel (Chicago, L.A., Phoenix, and San Francisco). Unlike the other books in the series, the monstrousness of the villainy erases the line separating crime and horror fiction. One happily familiar feature is reader Hill, who’s been giving voice to Reacher since book one. Not only does he convey toughness without sounding like a 1940s B movie sleuth, his villains easily shift from good old boy bonhomie to sneering arrogance, innocents speak softly (sometimes even tremulously), and his version of Reacher’s mixture of cynicism and insouciance fits the character to a T. A Delacorte hardcover.