San Marcos Public Library

In Too Deep

by Lee Child and Andrew Child

Book list The twenty-ninth Jack Reacher novel (and the fifth to be credited to Lee and his brother Andrew) has perhaps the most kick-ass opening of all the Reachers: Jack is in great pain, shackled hands and feet to a hard, flat surface, in total darkness. He’s vulnerable and confused. He doesn’t know where he is or how he got here, but he does know one thing: whoever put him here is going to wish he hadn’t. For some series, “more of the same” might read as a criticism—here, it’s precisely what regular readers want to hear. The Reacher novels are minimalistic, but every book is different, because the settings and characters are new. Here, the bad guys are not as over-the-top villainous as some have been (hello, Tripwire’s “Hook” Hobie), but they are formidable and clever, and Jack’s got his work cut out for him. Explosively violent and written in the familiar unadorned prose that drives the reader through the story, the book is sure to appeal to the Reacher series’ many fans. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The hunger for Jack Reacher tales remains voracious! Be ready for the next wave of requests.

Kirkus A temporary bout of amnesia leaves Reacher unsure of whom to trust. Jack Reacher wakes up in pain, handcuffed to a table and with an injured right arm. How did he get there? After neatly dispatching the man guarding him, Reacher attempts to exit the house where he’s being held, only to be stopped by a stranger named Ivan Vidic. According to Vidic, Reacher was the passenger in a car crash that killed the FBI agent who was driving. Vidic and his three associates, Fletcher, Kane, and Paris, pulled Reacher out of the wreck. Vidic is anxious to find out why Reacher was in the car, suspecting he’s a colleague to the dead driver. Reacher can’t recall anything about the wreck or the man driving, but suspects his habitual hitchhiking simply put him in the wrong place at the wrong time. Reacher’s curiosity is piqued by Vidic’s strange behavior and he demands to know why he was removed from the crash site and restrained. Vidic explains that he and Paris are planning to double-cross Fletcher and Kane, the real bad guys. If Reacher agrees to help them, Vidic promises him half of a $2.2 million score. Reacher agrees, not for the money, but to give himself more time to investigate Vidic’s story and whether the crash was truly an accident. He uncovers a complicated plot involving art forgery, theft, and corporate blackmail. This 29th installment of the Jack Reacher series is the first one primarily written by Andrew Child, Lee’s brother. The plot is structured like a game of three-card monte; Reacher knows he can’t trust anyone, but he can’t figure out which player is the mastermind. It’s entertaining enough, but the story feels basic compared to Reacher’s previous complex and complicated adventures. A series downshifts to simpler and less thrilling storytelling. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly Lee Child hands the Jack Reacher franchise over to his brother, Andrew, with this solid series entry (following The Secret). Former military policeman Reacher wakes up shackled to a steel table with a broken right arm and no memory of where he is or how he got there. During a visit from one of his captors, Reacher manages to get free. He soon learns he was kidnapped by a gang that’s wrapped up in a complex art forgery scheme. Their motives, as far as Reacher can tell, involve the pursuit of a safe holding $2.2 million, a bag of gold bullion, and something called “the Russian job.” As he tries to stay out of the group’s crosshairs and figure out what, exactly, they want from him, Reacher teams up with a detective named Jenny Knight who has a personal vendetta against one of the gang members. Together, they resolve to bring the whole syndicate down—provided their explosive romantic chemistry doesn’t distract them from the task at hand. Though the plot is too busy by half, Reacher fans old and new will be perfectly satisfied by the familiar bone-crunching and world-saving in this fast-paced adventure. The series is in good hands. (Oct.)

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