Flying by the seat of his pants like usual, Reacher is about to show the evildoers they should have had a plan B. Andrew is getting better at writing Reacher books but just can’t stop himself from over explaining every situation. I liked the way the story alternated between Reacher himself and the bad guys and it had a certain pace and rhythm that made me enjoy it. Jack Reacher has paused briefly in his travels in Gerrardsville, Colorado, when he witnesses a woman being pushed into traffic who consequently dies. Contains more chases than James Bond could manage, a plot to keep the reader guessing, and enough bad guys to test Reacher's strength and guile.

This time the ex-wife of a man murdered by the same people who pushed the woman under the bus) and he encounters an adversary even bigger and stronger than him – although, of course, not as smart! The first Jack Reacher movie, based on the novel One Shot and starring Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike, was released in December 2012. Reacher witnesses a woman being pushed in front of a bus by a furtive man in a grey hoodie, and then snaking his hand under her crushed body to retrieve her purse. There’s nothing wrong with two British authors writing a book set in America and filled only with American characters, but they should avoid the use of terms and colloquialisms almost only ever spoken and written in British English.Along the way, we are introduced to not one interesting character and forced to plow through page after page of eye-glazing, brain-numbing descriptions of how Reacher goes about accomplishing his tasks. That leads him to another recent death in the town of a man believed to have died a natural death from a heart attack. I especially got a kick out of Jed, the hapless teen who is also slouching his way to the apocalyptic wrap-up.

Reacher, naturally, will apply brutal reason (and other brutal forces) to find his way into the depths of this small town’s corrupt soul. Unless Andrew goes back to the formula that worked for over 20 best sellers, I think I am done trying.

No Plan B is an unevenly paced book with moments of extreme action that’s, at times, brutal and uncompromising. This could not have been written by Lee Child (Andrew Child is listed as a co-author), and I doubt Lee had anything to do with it or even read it. As always, my sincere thanks to Lee and Andrew Child, Delacorte Press, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of No Plan B!

This antagonist also used a thoroughly brutal method of killing, which normally I wouldn’t mind in a Reacher novel (they’re supposed to be full of violence), but this was too over-the-top for me. Indeed, the characters are barely described and there are no interesting relationships between any two. When a murder that he’d witnessed is dismissed as a suicide—and a second “accidental” death follows—Reacher realizes he’s on the trail of a deadly conspiracy. This is the 27th book in the Reacher series and if you’ve read any of the previous outings you’ll be aware of how things are going to go here. As always, sibling co-authors Lee and Andrew Child deliver the breakneck pace and explosive plotting that have made the series such fun.Of the first 26 I gave all 5 star ratings except for four which got four star ratings (mostly recent ones).

We at Penguin Random House Australia acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the Traditional Custodians and the first storytellers of the lands on which we live and work. It held my interest, mostly because I liked the teenager and I wanted to find out what the prison was up to. But here the authors have spent enough time with the characters involved with the subplots to make them three-dimensional. Lee is the recipient of many awards, most recently Author of the Year at the 2019 British Book Awards.This story had too many subplots generating so many characters, it bogged down a rhythm fraught with frustration trying to keep up. In addition to the sameness of these books, I have come to find Reacher’s lack of any personality or charisma tiresome. When the woman's death is ruled a suicide, Reacher begins to poke around finds himself in a vast conspiracy as evil as it is shocking.