Better Off Dead: (Jack Reacher 26)

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The truth about Reacher gets better and better. . . . This series [is] utterly addictive.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times A contemporary version of the knight in shining armour . . . Reacher is a mythic figure.' Literary Review

BETTER OFF DEAD | Kirkus Reviews BETTER OFF DEAD | Kirkus Reviews

And he's about to find a big one, on a deserted Arizona road, where a Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. Under the merciless desert sun, nothing is as it seems. A damsel in distress who's a former member of the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Group is too much for Reacher to ignore. She is searching for her twin brother, who has gone missing after becoming involved with a known drug and arms dealer. Reacher ends up on a slab in the coroner's office but that doesn't stop him from helping to reunite the brother and sister. Dr Houllier was seventy-two years old. He had served the town his whole life. Once he was part of a team. Now he was the only physician left. He was responsible for everything from delivering babies to treating colds to diagnosing cancer. And for dealing with the deceased. Which was the reason for that day’s early start. He’d been on duty since the small hours. Since he received the call about a shooting on the outskirts of town. It was the kind of thing that would attract attention. He knew that from experience. He was expecting a visit. Soon. And he needed to be ready. Ironically, it took an English author to realize the dramatic possibilities of modernizing the wandering gunfighter of American frontier stories. Starting in 1997 with Killing Floor, Lee Continue reading » Enjoyed this extract from Better Off Dead by Lee Child and Andrew Child? Let us know in the comments below!In combination with James Grant’s retirement announcement, he revealed he was turning the series over to his younger brother, Andrew Grant, a thriller author of nine thrillers of his own. To maintain the consistency of the brand, Andrew adopted the pen name Andrew Child to carry the series into the future. No one local knew why those towns had been chosen. Some said it was a mistake. A bureaucrat misreading a file note and dispatching the resources to the wrong place. Others figured that someone in D.C. must have owed the mayor a favour. But whatever the reason, no one objected. Not with all the new roads that were being laid. New bridges being constructed. And all kinds of buildings rising up. The project went on for years. And it left a permanent mark. The towns’ traditional adobe arches became a little more square. The stucco exteriors, a little more uniform. The layout of the streets, a little more regimented. And the amenities, a lot more generous. The area gained schools. Municipal offices. Fire houses. A police station. A courthouse. A museum. And a medical centre. Screw this.’ The guy dropped the axe handle. Reached behind him. And pulled out his gun. ‘Screw answering questions. Screw taking you alive.’ A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Better Off Dead: A Jack Reacher Novel Kindle Edition

The scar on his abdomen?’ Dr Houllier shook his head. ‘Like some kind of sea creature? I don’t think that’s a knife wound. More likely shrapnel.’ Just as Reacher helps Holly Johnson, an attractive young woman struggling with her crutches on a Chicago street, they are both kidnapped at gunpoint. Reacher and the woman are thrown into a dark van and taken 2,000 miles across America, completely unaware why they were kidnapped and where they are going. Finding themselves trapped in a seemingly remote place, they must work together to find the answers. This novel was adapted for the first season of the 2022 series, Reacher starring Alan Ritchson in the titular role. Still, I wasn’t ready to call it quits with Reacher without trying the second Andrew co-authored book. Sometimes, a new author of an existing popular series grows into the role and finds their footing. So, when I had the opportunity to snag an advance copy of Better Off Dead from the publisher, I jumped at the chance.The light had been easy to find, just like he’d been told it would be. It was the only one in the compound that was still working, all the way at the far end, six feet shy of the jagged metal fence that separated the United States from Mexico.

Better Off Dead by Lee Child, Andrew Child: 9781984818522 Better Off Dead by Lee Child, Andrew Child: 9781984818522

Reacher visits a hollowed-out town in Maine, where he witnesses a random bag-snatching but sees much more than a simple crime. Other people followed suit. The shanty became a village. The village became a town. The town split in two like a cell, multiplying greedily. Both halves flourished. One to the south. One to the north. There were many more years of steady growth. Then stagnation. Then decline. Slow and grim and unstoppable. Until an unexpected shot in the arm was delivered, in the late 1930s. An army of surveyors showed up. Then labourers. Builders. Engineers. Even some artists and sculptors. All sent by the WPA. Reacher arrives late one night in a rural Nebraska town. In the town's fading motel bar he overhears a drunk doctor's refusal to attend a victim of domestic abuse. Reacher intervenes, getting the doctor to attend to the victim while breaking the nose of the husband responsible for the abuse. It turns out that the husband is the scion of the powerful and rich Duncan clan, which maintains authority in that part of Nebraska. Reacher's intervention causes him to end up embroiled in a smuggling ring and an unsolved disappearance from twenty-five years prior. Reacher is in Key West, digging pools by hand and moonlighting as a bouncer for a topless bar. He discovers the body of a New York investigator hired by "Mrs. Jacob" to find him. He finds out that she is attorney Jodie Garber, daughter of General Leon Garber, Reacher's recently deceased mentor and surrogate father in the Army. She wants his help investigating her father's last project, a search on behalf of the elderly parents of their military MIA son. Having inherited a house and gained a steady girlfriend, Reacher contemplates a sedentary life as he and Jodie find themselves hunted by a psychopath businessman and military criminal crippled in the Vietnam War, who has a shadowy business and other secrets to protect.The stranger didn’t move. He didn’t relax his grip. The woman hesitated. The other guy was between her and the stranger. Not an ideal position. But he was six inches shorter. And slightly to the side. That did leave her a target. An area on the stranger’s chest. A rectangle. It was maybe six inches by ten. That was big enough, she figured. And it was more or less in the right position. She took a breath. Exhaled gently. And pulled the trigger. Traveling from the town of Hope, Colorado to the neighboring town of Despair, Reacher finds that he is an unwelcome visitor, which fuels his curiosity. Reacher decides to investigate the mystery behind the town's unwelcoming disposition towards visitors, unraveling in the process the secrets of Thurman, a powerful businessman who has employed the majority of the population of Despair to work in his recycling factory. Reacher makes a stop in an agrarian town called Mother's Rest. There a woman, Michelle Chang, enlists his help to find a missing colleague. Reacher then meets a brunette, Chrissie at a coffee shop and they agree to go CBGB together using Chrissie's car. Inside the club they find Hemingway along with one of Croselli's henchmen, who promptly calls his boss on seeing Reacher. Meanwhile, Reacher gets to know that Jill Hemingway had been suspended from the FBI, pending review as part of the deal cut by Croselli with the FBI and that she was planning to bring him down. Reacher takes care of the henchman, just before a power outage strikes, before making his escape with Chrissie.