Worth Dying For by Lee Child

I'm guessing that Lee Child is an editor and publisher's dream.

At the end of 61 Hours, Jack Reacher is hanging on for dear life as an old cold war bunker explodes. Seems he survived and is back walking and hitching rides. Still on the prairie (for the 3rd time), Jack is now in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. A ride leaves him off at a crossroads where there is a nothing motel/bar where he checks in then heads for the bar. A call comes in for the local doctor who is too drunk to drive and make a house call. Reacher embarrasses the doc for shirking his oath and drives him to the result of a continuing domestic abuse case. Drunk or not, the doc manages to help the woman out.

Elenor is the wife of Seth Duncan, the son and nephew to 3 elder Duncans who run the county by controlling all shipments of grains and other farming aids in and out of the county. Everyone is terrified of the Duncans and has been for as long as anyone can remember. Reacher heads back to the motel for some shut eye, only to be awakened by the housekeeper, Dorothy Coe. Reacher learns Coe lives alone, a widower and mother of a child missing for over 25 years.

As Reacher learns more about the Duncans, he is puzzled by their wealthy lifestyle and wonders how a monopoly on grain shipments keeps them living the way they do. That and he can't stand seeing these good people being crushed under the collective boots of the Duncan clan. Make that the collective boots of the 10 ex-Nebraska Cornhusker football players (big enough, but not good enough or smart enough for the NFL. Remember the old joke about Nebraska football? What does the 'N' on their helmet stand for? It stands for 'nowledge'. But I digress.).

The Duncans are none to pleased that Reacher has poked his nose into their family business and dispatches a couple Cornhuskers to scare Reacher off. Talk about going to a gunfight with only knives. Reacher makes short work those nitwits . . . 2 down, 8 to go. The ex-cop in Reacher wonders about that investigation 25 years ago into Dorothy's missing daughter. He talks his way into the local barracks of the state police to look at the files. But the Duncans and some others are none to pleased with Reachers interest in old history because it is upsetting deliveries.

The Duncans are in the shipping business all right. They are the next to bottom rung in a shipping business totally unrelated to grain. And the guy they supply and the guy he supplies and the guy he supplies work for some very rich Saudis. As Reacher seems to be a kink in the delivery chain, and the Saudis are not know for their patience, each link in the chain sends some muscle to help the Duncans dispose of Reacher and get things moving again.

All this sets up an interesting series of events over the next day or two that carefully eliminates the out of town muscle, incapacitates the remaining Cornhuskers, takes down the Duncans, and stops the Duncan's from moonlighting with this clandestine shipping service.

So, I guess one might say this is the 3rd book in a prairie trilogy (61 Hours and Nothing to Lose all take place on the flat desolate prairie). Child brings us once again, our intrepid Robin Hood, helping the downtrodden against local heavies. As usual, Child delivers with Reacher being a step ahead of the local thugs and bringing the heavy artillery, so to speak, when it is needed and Reacher managing to bring some closure to Dorothy Coe about her missing daughter, which was a pretty gruesome end for Dorothy's adoptive 8yo Margaret. But in the end, Reacher offers Dorothy the opportunity to exact her own brand of prairie justice.

Reacher fans should delight in another first rate tale by Lee Child. He keeps delivering the goods to his legions of Reacher fans (me included). Each book (yeah, there has been a dud or two) puts Reacher in dire straits with the locals only to fight his way out leaving a trail of broken or dead bodies in his wake before heading off into the figurative sunset. Actually thought this one had a little humor in it as the out of towners sure seemed to me to be a Frick and Frack sore of group, practically stumbling over each other as the round pegs in the square holes of Nebraska. And because Child consistently gives Reacher fans just what they expect, the cash registers keep ringing, keeping his editors and publishes very happy. Ca-ching! No new ventures for Child. Just keep those Reacher novels coming.

East Coast Don