FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Lee Child's astonishing new thriller, ex, military cop Reacher sees more than most people would...and because of that, he's thrust into an explosive situation that's about to blow up in his face. For the only way to find the truth- and save two innocent lives- is to do it the way Jack Reacher does it best: the hard way....

Jack Reacher was alone, the way he liked it, soaking up the hot, electric New York City night, watching a man cross the street to a parked Mercedes and drive it away. The car contained one million dollars in ransom money. And Edward Lane, the man who paid it, will pay even more to get his family back. Lane runs a highly illegal soldiers-for-hire operation. He will use any amount of money and any tool to find his beautiful wife and child. And then he'll turn Jack Reacher loose with a vengeance- because Reacher is the best man hunter in the world.

On the trail of a vicious kidnapper, Reacher is learning the chilling secrets of his employer's past...and of a horrific drama in the heart of a nasty little war. He's beginning to realize that Edward Lane is hiding something. Something dirty. Something big. But Reacher also knows this: he's already in way too deep to stop now.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In bestseller Child's 10th novel to feature ex-army MP Jack Reacher (after 2005's One Shot), a sidewalk cafe encounter in New York City plunges Reacher into one of his most challenging-and thoroughly engrossing-adventures to date. Acting out of "reflex and professional curiosity" (and the promise of a generous fee), Reacher agrees to help sinister ex-army officer Edward Lane, whose posse of six Special Forces veterans are even more ominous than he, track down his kidnapped daughter and trophy wife. Since the kidnapping of wife number one five years earlier ended in her death, Lane cautions Reacher that he will not brook police interference ("You break your word, I'll put your eyes out"). From Lane's quarters in the West Side's venerable Dakota apartment building to the shady sections of SoHo and Greenwich Village, the author's atmospheric descriptions make Manhattan a leading player, with menace lurking at every intersection. The inevitable showdown, on a farm outside a tiny English village, ranks as one of Child's most thrilling finales. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Jack Reacher may know the time to the minute without a watch and bring justice to bear wherever he goes, but this time he does it the hard way, sweating the details and working the clues. Because this time-despite his acute observation and intuition-he makes some wrong assumptions and a mistake that could turn tragic. Watching the passing scene over espresso in a New York caf , Reacher sees something that involves him in the kidnapping of Kate Lane, second wife of Edward Lane, whose first wife, Anne, was also kidnapped and killed, despite FBI efforts. Lane, rich from hiring out ex-military mercenaries, contracts with Reacher, who works covertly with private investigator Lauren Pauling, a retired FBI agent who had led the Anne Lane case. In his tenth outing (after One Shot), Reacher is humanized by both his mistakes-as he finds that both kidnappings are not what they seem-and his relationship with the fiftyish Pauling. Tension builds through plot twists to another riveting finish by Child, who shows again his mastery of the thriller. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/06.]-Michele Leber, Arlington, VA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

In this slick, swift, sexy thriller, it's Jack Reacher, the thinking man's Rambo, against a band of hand-picked, combat-hardened, armed-to-the-teeth, ex-special services guys, but, hey, there are only eight of them. We're talking Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, Green Beret, British SAS and the like, all now free from their savage services but never from their training. Which is to render people dead without wasted motion or mercy. They're commanded by an ex-U.S. Army colonel who has formed these wacko killers into a group called Operational Security Consultants (read mercenaries), and who may be considerably off-kilter himself. Reacher comes into contact with them all by happenstance. Sitting in a favorite cafe, sipping espresso, he notices something odd about a certain parked car-and is noticed noticing. What he's seen, it turns out, is a car full of ransom money. It belongs to ex-Colonel Edward Lane, whose wife and step-child-Kate and Jade-have been kidnapped. In Reacher's world, however, it's a truism that kidnappings are not always what they appear. Kate, Reacher soon learns, is not Lane's first wife. Nor is she his first wife to be kidnapped. Reacher learns this from a young woman with vengeance on her mind. For four years, Patti Joseph, the first Mrs. Lane's sister, has kept Lane under personal surveillance, convinced that he murdered her sister, intent on making him pay for it. From private eye Lauren Pauling-green-eyed and elegant-Reacher learns more about Lane, none of it redeeming. In and out of bed, Reacher and Pauling form an effective team, mounting a search-and-destroy operation that eventually takes them across the Atlantic to what amounts to an English O.K. Corral. QuintessentialChild (One Shot, 2005, etc.)-preposterous as always, but oh, how those pages keep turning.