The new Jack Reacher offering by Lee Child and Andrew Child.
Jack Reacher has to be one of – if not the most entertaining literary hero of all time. I must confess to being a Reacher fan since his first novel Killing Floor, some 25 episodes back. The only time I have not enjoyed a Reacher adventure is when the diminutive Tom Cruise thought he could do justice to the character in a movie. Bottom line – he couldn’t! Jack Reacher is a big man, in stature and in presence, and Cruise couldn’t come close. But anyway, enough about little Tom, and back to Jack Reacher.
The Sentinel begins in the same fashion as many of the novels – Reacher arrives in a small, nondescript town, aiming to down a good cup of coffee then move swiftly along, but of course, that is not to be. Almost immediately, his sixth sense recognises trouble heading the way of what would appear to be a local citizen (Rusty Rutherford) going about his daily business. The bad guys move in on Rusty in an ambush situation, but Reacher moves in on them first in his own, inimitable fashion.
The plot centres on a cyber-attack on the town, with a ransom being demanded. Rusty is the local IT manager, and has lost his job as a result of the cyber-attack. The question is who could hope to gain anything out of holding a small town to ransom for the return of its data systems. Is all as it seems, though? But then is it ever in a Reacher thriller?
The Sentinel has a slightly different feel to it, in that it takes us into the realms of the cyber world, which is not Reacher’s “thing”. This could possibly be due to (and this is purely supposition on my part) author Lee Child inviting his younger brother, Andrew, to collaborate with him on this book. Andrew is already a successful novelist - the author of nine thrillers under the name Andrew Grant.
Big brother Lee is one of the world’s most successful authors of the modern era. It is said that one of his novels featuring Jack Reacher is sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds! Cumulatively, his books have sold over one hundred million copies.
The
Sentinel should not be missed by any Reacher fan,
and will make an ideal Christmas present. Get out there and buy it now before
stocks run out!
The Sentinel is published by Bantam Press. ISBN 978-1-7876-3362-9 - Barry Meehan
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