One Shot -- Lee Child (****+/*****)
This is the ninth novel in the Jack Reacher series, which has had its highs and lows for me. My favorite remains Die Trying (though I couldn't tell you why, except it struck a chord). This new one comes pretty close to the top of the Jack Reacher list.
Reacher (not even his mother called him Jack) is an ex Army MP officer, who has been wandering the US ever since his discharge. He's taken flying solo and staying off the grid to an extreme, but he likes his life and he's unapologetic.
So we start here with a sniper who shoots down five people leaving an Indiana office complex at quitting time. The evidence is overwhelming, and it points to an ex-army sniper. In Florida Reacher sees the story on the news and dumps the woman he's been spending the weekend with to set off for Indiana. When he was an MP, he prosecuted the accused for a similar crime. That time the evidence was clear, too, but the shooter got off on a political technicality. So now Reacher is going to make sure justice is done the second time around.
Except the guy claims he is innocent, and he wants Reacher -- the last person he should ask for -- to come look into the case. Reacher has no sympathy for the accused, but of course, things get complicated.
This novel moves fast. There are a lot of unexpected turns, a whole slew of interesting secondary characters, and an unusually terse Jack Reacher. In some of the earlier novels he's much more approachable, but here he really is hard as the proverbial nail, unflinching when it comes to dealing out justice. He enjoys women, but the ones he seeks out are the ones he knows he doesn't have to worry about; they are as tough as he is, and won't be surprised when he leaves. The final sentence of the novel says everything you need to know about Reacher: "...he could buy a pair of shoes and be just about anywhere before the sun went down."
I liked this novel a lot, but mostly I'm looking forward to the next one. My primary curiosity is what Lee Child is going to do with an ever more isolated and distant Jack Reacher. I'm waiting to see if he'll be reeled in, shocked out of his loner status, or if that trend will continue.
