Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child

Personal is Lee Child’s 19^th Jack Reacher novel and may be his best yet.  In it, Reacher takes on two foes superior to him at two of his most competent skills, long range sniper shooting and street fighting.

A sniper has taken a long range shot at the president of France in Paris.  So long range that the list of suspects can be narrowed to three- an American, a Brit and a Russian.  The American, John Kott was recently released from a 15 year stint in prison.  Reacher put him there.  So, Reacher is called out of retirement to find Kott and put him away... again.

Reacher is teamed with a young female CIA operative, Casey Nice and they are flown to Kott’s home in rural Arkansas.  There they find evidence that Kott has been practicing his skill from fourteen hundred yards but the sniper is long gone.

The next stop is Paris where Reacher meets his British and Russian counterparts to study the scene of the crime.  The spot where the rifle was fired is exactly fourteen hundred yards from where the French president was standing.  Only a bullet proof shield saved him.  While the three investigators are lined up in a row examining the sniper’s shooting post, the Russian’s head explodes, taken down by a sniper from over a thousand yards away.  Reacher surmises the bullet was a miss clearly aimed at him not the Russian.  Now he is certain Kott is the shooter and knows it’s personal.

The next scheduled public appearance of the French president is at the G8 in London in a few days… obviously all the G8 leaders will be there.  So Reacher and Ms. Nice are off to London where they are escorted by an MI6 (British CIA) operative named Bennett.  MI5 (British FBI) has narrowed the likely location of the sniper to two London gangs, one is local (Romford Boys) and the other is Serbian.  Reacher quickly deduces Kott is staying with the Romford Boys’ leader and is not planning to fire on the G8 summit… he’s laying a trap for Reacher.  The gang’s leader and enforcer is Little Joey… six eleven, over three hundred pounds, and built for fighting.  So Reacher must more or less single handedly, take down this Goliath in order to subjugate his sniper foe.  In doing so, he hopes to find out who really is behind this flurry of violence.

Personal is Lee Child at his personal best.  He uses his iconic protagonist Jack Reacher to fascinate us.  Reacher is an off the grid avenging drifter made irresistible by his self-proclaimed sense of justice and selfless courageous defense of the defenseless… no police, judge or jury necessary.  We are intrigued how he can calmly and quickly, size up his foe making split second but precise assessments that inevitably stack the deck in his favor.  After nineteen installments, these Jack Reacher stories just never get old.  Child is a master of this genre.