Lee Child
casts his improbable but hugely believable main character in a rip-roaring and
very entertaining adventure in “Blue Moon”, the 24th novel in the Reacher
series. (Review by Barry Meehan)
“This is a random universe,” says Jack Reacher in
this great novel. “Once in a blue moon things turn out just right.” And in the
best tradition of all the Jack Reacher novels, they do turn out better than
just right. Master storyteller Lee Child casts his improbable but hugely
believable main character in a rip-roaring and very entertaining adventure in Blue Moon, the 24th novel in
the Reacher series.
If you’ve never read any of the Reacher novels
before – and that would seem unlikely, given the fact that one of the previous
23 is sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds, with over one million
copies sold in total – you don’t need to read the previous novels in sequence
to appreciate this one. It stands alone, very much like Jack Reacher himself.
Blue Moon
opens with the 6 foot 5 inch former military cop on a Greyhound Bus, heading
for an unspecified city. He is keeping an eye on an elderly man who has fallen
asleep in his seat, a fat envelope filled with cash hanging out of his pocket.
But Reacher is not the only one watching the sleeping man. A second passenger
has his eye on the man, obviously hoping for a quick score of the cash.
When the second passenger makes his move at the
first stop on the Greyhound route, Reacher is quick to effect a rescue. The old
man is very grateful, but insists that he needs no more help from Reacher, even
though he is obviously very scared, and clearly in some serious trouble.
Reacher – in his inimitable style as a force for good, the helper of the
downtrodden – sees the man home and establishes the facts behind the man’s dire
situation.
The story unfolds at breakneck speed, as rival
Ukranian and Albanian gangs compete with each other for control of the
lucrative graft, protection, money-lending and prostitution rackets within the
city, Battle lines are clearly demarcated until Reacher arrives squarely in the
middle, determined to put an end to the old man’s misery, as well as those
around him in the same predicament.
There are twists and turns a-plenty in Blue Moon, along with non-stop action,
the almost obligatory romantic interlude, and some wonderful moments of comedy
– all ingredients that can only be dished up by Lee Child, an absolute master
of his craft.
The only mistake – in my humble opinion – that has
been made in the Jack Reacher series, was giving Tom Cruise the rights to play
Reacher in two movies – One Shot
(2012) and Never Go Back (2016). The
great thing about Jack Reacher is that he has the ability to make people uneasy
when he walks into a situation owing to his size and stature, intimidating to
those present. Cruise is 10 inches shorter than Reacher, even in platform
shoes, and is much smaller in stature, so the movies were fatally flawed from
the get-go. This was unfortunately one of those occasions for people to say
“Sorry, Tom, but size does matter”!
The good news for Reacher fans around the world,
though, is that a TV adaptation of the first movie is said to be in the works.
Child promises that the small-screen adaptation will correct the apparent
wrongs of the movie, so this will certainly be something to look forward to!
Blue Moon is
published by PenguinRandomHouse. ISBN: 9781787630277, Recommended Retail Price
R290. – Barry Meehan
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