Publishers Weekly
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In the sturdy latest Jack Reacher adventure from father-son duo Lee and Andrew Child (after Exit Strategy), the authors point Reacher toward two new areas of interest: childcare and data centers. At the outset, Reacher is contacted by Gen. Susan Turner, an old flame who’s heading a new unit within the 110th Military Police. Turner fears there’s a traitor in her command, and calls in Reacher to probe the murder of John Bisley, one of her agents who has left behind a wife and an 11-month-old daughter named Amanda. Reacher knows little more than that Bisley’s death is tied to the development of phantom data centers, which copy information from legitimate data centers, and that billions of dollars are involved. The morning after he arrives in Denver to start investigating, he’s attacked by several assassins, which succeeds about as well as most attacks on Reacher ever do. Eventually, Turner joins Reacher in Denver, and the pair pick up their old romance while tracing all the nefarious activity to a pair of cybercriminals. Readers will cheer as Reacher smashes skulls and smile as he comforts the sobbing Amanda, who gives this installment more pathos than usual. It’s loads of fun. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson & Assoc. (Oct.)

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A couple of wannabe trillionaires pose a high-tech threat in this latest Jack Reacher novel. Young Special Agent John Bisley is stabbed to death in an apparently targeted and premeditated attack, and Gen. Susan Turner wants to know why. Head of a “brand-new agency that won’t even say its name,” she seeks out the hard-to-find former Army major Jack Reacher to figure out what happened to Bisley and learn about the crime he was chasing. Turner heads CSA G-99 Section, a new organization “like the army’s own FBI,” and Reacher fits right in. “Rules of engagement?” he asks. “Keep it as clean as you can. But if you can’t, make it as dirty as you want,” she replies. Finding the pair of killers isn’t much of a challenge, and after reminding them that Bisley left behind a widow and a baby daughter, Reacher exacts a nonjudicial penalty with his three-inch-barrel Colt Defender. Not that the man of “implacable bulk” needs weapons, as he is nimble, powerful, and merciless in hand-to-hand combat and believes there’s “no such thing as an unfair advantage.” Reacher’s foes, at least in this adventure, are not even close to being his physical equals. That creates an imbalance and dilutes the tension: Of course the series hero always wins, but the confrontations—even the final showdown—are too easy. Luckily, there’s a fast-moving, complicated plot that’s tuned in to the 21st century. Bisley had been investigating cybercrime and “something to do with artificial intelligence.” Tiny Summertown, Colorado, has five giant data centers and a field of solar panels clustered together. They are the creations of an AI startup named Everything Everywhere Forever, or EEF. The creators aspire to be multitrillionaires through nefarious means, and that can’t happen on Reacher’s watch. Reacher doesn’t know the technical jargon, and he asks for explanations as though speaking “Hindi to a beagle.” Meanwhile, he hurts the people who need to be hurt as he and the general pursue what “feels like a very high-stakes game of Clue.” Fast-moving fun for action junkies. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Jack Reacher, the former military cop and nomadic problem-solver, returns in the thirty-first novel in the immensely popular series, the seventh cowritten by Lee Child and his brother Andrew. Susan Turner, who was introduced in 2010’s 61 Hours as the commander of Reacher’s old unit, the 100th MPs, is now heading up a new, highly top secret unit based out of the Pentagon. She has a problem. One of her key people has been murdered while on an undercover assignment. Turner needs someone who can find out who’s responsible and do it off the books. She needs Jack Reacher. Her instructions—try to keep it clean, but if you have to get dirty, get as dirty as you want. Either way, keep the U.S. military out of it. It’s nice to see Reacher reconnecting with Turner, with whom he shared more than a professional relationship, and, of course, it’s exciting to watch him wade into a situation with both fists. Another sure-fire hit.