Nothing to Lose

April 14, 2008
At the start of bestseller Child’s solid 12th Jack Reacher novel (after Bad Luck and Trouble
), the ex-military policeman hitchhikes into Colorado, where he finds himself crossing the metaphorical and physical line that divides the small towns of Hope and Despair. Despair lives up to its name; all Reacher wants is a cup of coffee, but what he gets is attacked by four thugs and thrown in jail on a vagrancy charge. After he’s kicked out of town, Reacher reacts in his usual manner—he goes back and whips everybody’s butt and busts up the town’s police force. In the process, he discovers, with the help of a good-looking lady cop from Hope, that a nearby metal processing plant is part of a plan that involves the war in Iraq and an apocalyptic sect bent on ushering in the end-time. With his powerful sense of justice, dogged determination and the physical and mental skills to overcome what to most would be overwhelming odds, Jack Reacher makes an irresistible modern knight-errant.

April 1, 2008
Soon after arriving in Despair, CO, the large, deadly, and enigmatic Jack Reacher, last seen in "Bad Luck and Trouble", happily begins to take things into his own hands. He is a loner, a paladin, a wanderer who always seems to find trouble and always helps the good guys prevail. The towns of Hope and Despair are only a few miles apart as the crow flies, but guess which one is a dismal factory town ruled by a despotic religious fanatic? Good. Now guess which one Jack Reacher is going to take apart in his own inimitable fashion? It turns out that the fanatic believes the end of the world will come soon and wants to expedite the process. While this is going on, bodies are being found in the desert and people are disappearing. Child's 12th thriller may be formulaic and predictable, but Jack Reacher fans have always liked that about Child's novels. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/1/08.]Robert Conroy, Warren, MI

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2008
Jake Reacher only rents rooms one night at a time, confirming his absolute freedom to move on. About the only thing sure to convince Reacher to stick around is someone telling him he has to leave. Thats what happens when the former military policeman turned inveterate loner stops for a cup of coffee in an aptly named company town called Despair, Colorado. Strangers arent allowed in Despair, hes told, and two cops arrive to drive him out to the city limits. You can run Reacher out of town, maybe, but you sure as hell cant keep him out. Forming an unlikely alliance with a female cop in the neighboring town thats calledyou guessed itHope, Reacher sneaks back to Despair and finds all manner of strange goings-on: the creepy burg is run by a megalomaniac entrepreneur who is using his metal-salvage business for something definitely snarky. But what? Reacher finds the answers, of course, but to do so, he pretty much has to go up against the whole damn town. What is it that makes these action-fantasies so satisfying? Yes, there is something of the cartoon superhero in Reachers steel-trap mind and body, but the action is so grounded in everyday details that instead of laughing it all off as silly, we find ourselves responding on a deeply emotional, archetypal level. We all feel as if the whole town is against us sometimes; Reacher lets us experience what it would be like, just once, to slap every last one of the fools aligned against us upside the head and then, pausing only to pack our toothbrush, hit the highway.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)