The Sentinel by Lee Child and Andrew Child

The 24^th edition about the wanderings of Jack Reacher has Jack getting off the bus in Nashville. Looking for some coffee to enjoy while listening to some music, he wanders into a bar. Band’s pretty good. Strikes up a conversation and learns that the bar owner has just stiffed them. In his typical low-key way, Jack convinces the owner to pay up, with a couple bonuses thrown in. The owner also agrees not to diss the band’s rep around town. Also gets a cut as the band’s new manager.

Having done some good, he manages to cop a ride with a young insurance adjuster headed west out of Nashville. Destination is a suburb called Pleasantville. Sounds OK, so Jack tags along. Upon arrival, Jack again goes looking for some coffee. Finds a coffee shop and settles in. The customers and staff all seem to be giving this one guy a serious collective cold shoulder. Being a buttinsky, Jack learns that Rusty Rutherford is the town’s IT director and under his watch, everything has gone entirely offline. And Rusty is blamed. And he gets fired. But Pleasantville in his home and he wants to stay and clear his name.

The town is being held up by a ransomware routine that has shut the town down until a ransom is paid. The town has insurance, and the adjuster has just arrived to pay up and get life back to normal. Of course, nothing works out right. Rusty gets jumped and Reacher steps in to convince the thugs to take their issues elsewhere. Another band of punks takes a run this time at Reacher. More bad planning.

In his attempts to protect the Pleasantville data, Rusty and on old friend, ex-FBI cybercrime agent, had developed a bit of software to protect the town against such an attack. Town bean counters weren't interested. It sort of worked, but it couldn’t fully stop the ransomware attack.

Has to be more to this than just this ransomware attack. Turns out Pleasantville is the home of a former Nazi. Add in that the folks muscling Reacher and Rutherford are Russian. Russians with a connection to some of those bots that presumably messed up the most recent election. And whenever the Russians are involved, the FSB can't be far behind. Pleasantville is mixed up with some pretty heavy hitters.

The annual fall release of another Jack Reacher book is an event. Breathless fanboys line up. This year is different. Lee Child is in retirement mode and is turning a multimillion-dollar franchise to his son, Andrew Grant/Andrew Child. Both are credited with writing the book. Grant has a few mysteries published in the UK, but the initial reviews by the obsessed fanboys were not very favorable. Matter of fact, some reviews were downright nasty. I’ll admit, in the beginning I thought the writing style seemed a bit forced. But once the story took off, I couldn’t tell what was written by Dad and what was written by the son. For me, it was a clean handoff. Maybe not as smooth as the Vince Flynn to Kyle Mills move, but certainly not so obvious that I’d stop reading. Reacher wouldn’t like that. 

(if I had to make a complaint, it's with the choice of Pleasantville, TN. Such a town does exist. And it's west of Nashville. But its population is listed as 666 (potentially ominous) and that's a bit small for some of the amenities noted in the book. Primarily, Rutherford's apartment is multistory with its own doorman and underground parking. Pretty uppity for a town of 666. But that's nit picking at its finest). 

ECD