Publisher: Dell

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A Wanted Man

A Wanted Man

The 17th full novel in the Jack Reacher series, A Wanted Man continues the series formula, which has worked for Child so far and works again here.  Reacher is a solid protagonist and you never go wrong reading on of these books. The first thing that struck me in this book is that it carries over some threads from the previous novel in the series, and leaves some threads at the end for the next novel in the series.  This may not seem that odd, but for a Reacher novel it is.  Except for three books early in the series that were also mildly connected, the Reacher novels are fairly stand alone, never referencing the events of previous books.  You could pick up a novel in the middle of the series without ever reading any of the others, and the experience of reading it would be the same.  That isn’t… Read more »

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The Shadow Protocol

The Shadow Protocol

If you were to take any of the “American spy working at the tip of the spear against a major terrorist threat”, and there are a lot of those books in the market, and add some kind of mental transference sci-fi angel, you get The Shadow Protocol.  It does add an interesting twist to the genre but not much additional substance. The book jacket compares this to Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series and there are definite parallels, although the character and the writing are both less interesting then what you find in Ludlum’s original books.   The actual writing of the book, the dialogue, characterizations, etc. are all pretty much on par with the average of this genre so that isn’t a big knock on McDermott’s work.  Ludlum does stand as the gold standard of the spy thriller genre so it isn’t fair to hold McDermott to that level. The added tech/sci-fi… Read more »

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Never Go Back

Never Go Back

Review by Reynold Starnes Never Go Back is the eighteenth and latest Lee Child thriller featuring Jack Reacher.  For those new to the series, Reacher is a drifter who, often without intending to, finds himself against very bad people, which never ends well for the bad guys.  He is an ex-Army MP who is six feet, five inches tall and weighs around two-fifty.  He is an accomplished investigator, expert marksman, trained in hand-to-hand combat, and very smart. In Never Go Back, Reacher heads to the special MP unit he used to lead to see the new commander, a woman, whose voice he liked when he spoke to her on the phone.  When he gets to the post, he becomes involved in a conspiracy she has inadvertently touched. Like the other Reacher novels, this is a good read.  It isn’t a favorite, but it isn’t the least favorite either.  Middle of… Read more »

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