1992. An earlier case that didn’t go welland got Reacher busted back to Captain and assigned to the minor leagues. He’s investigating the sale of M16 firing mechanisms that can turn a civilian version into a fully automatic weapon that only the military should have. Small operation. A couple of clerks at an Illinois arsenal processing Desert Storm surplus for demolition remove the devices and sell them on the black market. Reacher and a female FBI agent take down this little operation barely breaking a sweat.
That’s just the preamble. It may be 1992, but his next assignment has its origin in 1969 at a chemical plant in India. The Russians were concentrating efforts on the development of chemical weapons. The response by the US was to double their efforts at finding defensive antidotes. Thus, this plant in India.
Morgan Sanson was a mid-level administrator at the plant whose assignment was safety. He unearthed some cost-cutting to swindle money and was preparing to send his findings up the chain of command. When his findings are ignored, he decides to go public. Apparently filled with guilt or remorse at the lack of action, he takes his own life leaving behind his wife and four children to be shipped back to Germany to fend for themselves.
While the India plant was doing what was advertised, there was another lab doing its own weapons development. Seven scientists worked in secrecy, but it was their work that was what Sanson uncovered. An accident at the plant happens and about a half dozen people died. Sanson is a convenient patsy now that he’s not around.
Back to 1992. Four respected and mostly retired scientists have died. Mostly by accident or suicide. The next one to die was in a hospital and found below his window from a long fall. That one doesn’t sound like the others.
The deaths were those scientists who worked secretly at the India plant. The Defense Dept is now interested. A task force is assembled with a rep from the Army (Reacher), FBI, CIA, and Treasury with the purpose of developing a list of names of whomever might be behind these deaths/murders. One of the first, and most interesting questions, is why were these four selected for this task force? Because of they are investigative terriers or because each has some black marks on their record. If anything goes wrong . . . the chances for further demotions loom large.
This isn’t the rambunctious street fights we are used to with Reacher. More of a research procedural. Doesn’t take long to figure out who is behind the deaths or their motivations. Think of this as the Child’s version of a Lt. Columbo story. Everyone knows who’s guilty and the story is not the ‘who’. Rather the story is the search and just how will this task force.
The addition of Andrew (Lee’s son) to the mix (this is maybe the 3rd or 4th collaboration) indicates that the dad (Lee) is moving closer to full retirement. While Andrew is a publish author, he is still learning how to present a Jack Reacher story. I see improvement, but it’s still not there yet, but I’m hopeful.
Two things I liked about this outing. First is that the story investigates Reacher’s history. I seem to remember one earlier book (with Reacher in the former Yugoslavia, can’t recall the title) and would like to see more. Second is purely coincidental. This is the first Reacher book to come out since the casting of Alan Richson as Reacher by Amazon Prime. Was always kind of hard to picture Reacher as Tom Cruise. Not so now. Each page turned brought a new image of Richson in my mind’s eyes. That works so much better.
ECD
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