Night School

Starred review from August 8, 2016
Set in 1996, bestseller Child’s splendid 21st Jack Reacher novel (after 2015’s Make Me) delves into his hero’s U.S. Army past. Right after Reacher is commended for a mission in the Balkans, he’s immediately sent “back to school.” It turns out that school means a vital and secret mission: a sleeper cell in Hamburg, Germany, has learned of an American traitor with something to sell to Islamic terrorists for $100 million. Alfred Ratcliffe, the U.S. president’s National Security Adviser, tells Reacher and his fellow students—two seasoned agents from the CIA and the FBI—“we have enemies everywhere” and gives Reacher’s team its orders: “Your job is to find that American.” It’s no spoiler to say that Reacher handles the heavy lifting on-site in Hamburg, though he’s ably assisted by two former military police colleagues, Frances Neagley and Manuel Orozco. The premise of the pre-9/11 plot is both compelling and disconcerting, and Child applies his trademark eye for detail to make the whole endeavor surprisingly and thrillingly credible. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary.

Jack Reacher finds himself involved in a race to stop a major terrorist operation.The Reacher series has had several entries set during its hero's time as an Army investigator. This outing is situated between the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the turn of the millennium, in a time of fear that the coming of Y2K might bring chaos. In other words, a time when the public still considered terrorism only a faint possibility for the United States. Reacher is part of a trio of government experts trying to track down an American who appears to have sold something to Middle Eastern radicals operating out of Hamburg. The novel tries to work up suspense by highlighting how unknowingly close Reacher and his quarry are operating to each other, but the missed connections and the way the action jumps from the U.S. to Europe impedes any momentum. That's not the whole problem, though. The novel contains descriptions of torture which are incidental to the plot and sour the rest of the book. And the shift here to terrorism, as opposed to the individual crime and corporate machinations that provided the villains in most of the series' other entries, doesn't sit right. Reacher novels are terrific pop entertainments. But they don't possess the weight or moral seriousness that allowed books by Eric Ambler, Geoffrey Household, and John le Carre to plausibly confront the dangers and moral dilemmas of their day. For the first time in 20 books, the man-mountain Reacher, and the story around him, moves like a lug. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from August 1, 2016
The premise of Child's celebrated Jack Reacher series may be the best in the business: off-the-grid, ex-military guyhave toothbrush will travelwanders about, stumbling into messes and cleaning them up. But how do you keep it going without those random messes beginning to seem contrived? By flashing back to Reacher when he was on the grid and in the army. This time it's 1997, and our boy, still in the MPs, is sent to night school along with two other students, one FBI, one CIA, and charged with following not the money but the whisper of the money, as when chatter picks up a Saudi courier saying, The American wants a hundred million dollars. What American? What's the money for? It's off to Germany to find out. In chapters that alternate between Reacher's point of view and that of the elusive American himself, we come to understand the frightening scope of an audacious scheme that stretches back to the Cold War.There's not as much headbanging here as usual, but there is an extra serving of Holmesian ratiocination, as Jack shows his deductive side, as does a German police detective who can exercise the old gray matter with the best of them. There's also something out of the ordinary for Child: an in-depth portrait of the bad guy, who is very bad, indeed, but in a pathetic, almost sympathetic way, as when we see him at the end, his master plan in tatters (no spoiler therethis is a Reacher novel), staring blankly with open-mouthed incredulity at the unlikely ways the world can crush a person. We share that incredulity, but with Child's equally unlikely ability to keep his formula fresh, not only with well-timed backstory, but also with a touch of lyricism where we least expect it.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: What's longer: a presidential campaign or a Jack Reacher publicity campaign? The would-be prexies win but not by much, as this novel's five-month national consumer-advertising effort proves.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 1, 2016

Child's latest Jack Reacher novel (after Make Me) is a prequel set in 1996. Reacher, age 35, is a military policeman fresh off a successful mission that earned him his second Legion of Merit medal for outstanding service. Expecting new orders in line with his excellent performance record, our protagonist is instead told he is going back to school, and that career development is a wonderful thing. Teamed with an FBI agent and a CIA analyst, Reacher quickly learns their classroom assignment is actually an emergency covert task force. Offices are set up, staff gathered, and intelligence revealed. A CIA asset, undercover inside a jihadist sleeper cell in Germany, has heard that "the American wants a hundred million dollars," but no one knows for what. Reacher and Sgt. Frances Neagley travel to Hamburg to work with the city's bumbling yet crafty police chief to identify and find the mysterious American. Reacher and Neagley investigate without the technology and Internet tools available in later novels, and the Y2K problem is a looming threat. VERDICT This way- back novel, with its old-school investigating, street-smart tactics, and classic Reacher attitude, is an edge-of-your-seat book readers won't want to put down. [See Prepub Alert, 5/16/16.]--Susan Carr, Edwardsville P.L., IL

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2016

Reacher returns after last year's No. 1 New York Times best-selling Make Me, in time for the October 2016 release of the film Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. In this 1996-set prequel, we revisit Reacher's army days, though he's not in uniform; the narrative opens, "In the morning they gave Reacher a medal, and in the afternoon they sent him back to school."

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2016

Child's latest Jack Reacher novel (after Make Me) is a prequel set in 1996. Reacher, age 35, is a military policeman fresh off a successful mission that earned him his second Legion of Merit medal for outstanding service. Expecting new orders in line with his excellent performance record, our protagonist is instead told he is going back to school, and that career development is a wonderful thing. Teamed with an FBI agent and a CIA analyst, Reacher quickly learns their classroom assignment is actually an emergency covert task force. Offices are set up, staff gathered, and intelligence revealed. A CIA asset, undercover inside a jihadist sleeper cell in Germany, has heard that "the American wants a hundred million dollars," but no one knows for what. Reacher and Sgt. Frances Neagley travel to Hamburg to work with the city's bumbling yet crafty police chief to identify and find the mysterious American. Reacher and Neagley investigate without the technology and Internet tools available in later novels, and the Y2K problem is a looming threat. VERDICT This way- back novel, with its old-school investigating, street-smart tactics, and classic Reacher attitude, is an edge-of-your-seat book readers won't want to put down. [See Prepub Alert, 5/16/16.]--Susan Carr, Edwardsville P.L., IL

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.