Reacher hitches a ride in Texas. Carmen, the driver, is a mother of a young girl and is trapped in an abusive marriage. She requests Reacher's help. After some deliberation Reacher consents. However, at her remote ranch in Echo County Reacher encounters lies, prejudice and hatred climaxing in Carmen being arrested for the murder of her husband. With Carmen's true motives cast into doubt, Reacher finds himself investigating the truth. Though billed as a crime compendium, this wildly uneven anthology includes tales of love in a Paris bookshop (R.J. Ellory’s “Borrowed Time”) and revenge for breaching dating etiquette (Jason Starr’s Continue reading » This novel was adapted for the first season of the 2022 series, Reacher starring Alan Ritchson in the titular role. Screw this.’ The guy dropped the axe handle. Reached behind him. And pulled out his gun. ‘Screw answering questions. Screw taking you alive.’

Jack Reacher (book series) - Wikipedia Jack Reacher (book series) - Wikipedia

Reacher and Chrissie then meet Hemingway outside Croselli's hideout. Hemingway informs Reacher that due to the outage, Croselli's men were out protecting various businesses that paid him money, from looters and plunderers, leaving Croselli alone in his warren. Chrissie and Reacher part ways and then Reacher breaks into the hideout to take care of Croselli but not before he gets him to profess his various crimes on tape. Reacher leaves Croselli tied to a chair with the tape at his feet and Hemingway calls in the FBI.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. Minutes later, Reacher is heading into town. To introduce himself to the shadowy crew who made it happen. Their boss has a terrifying reputation and the stakes are high. Just to get in and meet him, Reacher is going to have to achieve the impossible. When someone makes a small anonymous deposit into Reacher's bank account, it triggers his fixation for math and his investigative instincts. Reacher deduces that the deposit is a signal only the eight former members of his elite team of army investigators would use. Obsessed with math like Reacher, Frances Neagley locates him because of the brutal death of one of their own. They race to reunite with the survivors of their old team and raise the living, bury the dead, and connect the dots in a mystery that grows more complex with more murders. With the lives of those Reacher considers family at stake, his usual emotionless demeanor breaks and he says of the killers, "They are dead men walking." The team falls into their old roles and routines with ease, their motto still their sacred rule: You do not mess with the Special Investigators.

Better Off Dead by Lee Child, Andrew Child | Waterstones Better Off Dead by Lee Child, Andrew Child | Waterstones

Hemingway also makes a call to the New York Police Department about the Son of Sam based on the description given to her by Reacher. They then go to a motel where Jill dies of a myocardial infarction. [9] Reacher leaves the motel after informing the police of her death. Reacher is the stuff of myth. . . . One of this century’s most original, tantalizing pop-fiction heroes.” — The Washington Post The stranger saw no need to give them another warning. He’d been clear with them from the start. And they were the ones who’d chosen to up the ante. 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.

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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. Chrissie and Reacher then make out in her car, when they encounter the Son of Sam, a serial killer who killed couples making out in cars. Son of Sam couldn't see Chrissie and leaves, but not before Reacher gets a good look at his posture and mannerisms.

Better Off Dead by Lee Child and Andrew Child Better Off Dead by Lee Child and Andrew Child

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. 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. 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. Temperance Brennan is being investigated for the murder of a reporter who was re-opening an old suicide case that Reacher investigated. Included in MatchUp, a collection of co-authored short stories by male and female thriller authors (Lee Child and Kathy Reichs). 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.

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Enjoyed this extract from Better Off Dead by Lee Child and Andrew Child? Let us know in the comments below! 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. Smart writing, vivid action scenes, and dramatic twists mark this seamless effort. Even those for whom this is their first Reacher novel will be clamoring for more.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) 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.

Better Off Dead by Lee Child - Penguin Books New Zealand Better Off Dead by Lee Child - Penguin Books New Zealand

This novella, published in 2013, [7] opens on 13 July 1977 [8] with an almost seventeen year old Reacher stopping by in New York in the middle of a heat wave to visit his brother at West Point when he encounters a woman (Jill Hemingway) being assaulted by a man. He drives off the man after a small scuffle, only to learn that the man is Croselli, one of the mob bosses of New York City. Croselli had slapped Hemingway for wearing a wire tape, and from this he deduced that Hemingway was an FBI agent. Hemingway warns him to leave the city before midnight or else Croselli would have his men kill him. They then part ways. 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.The story features Reacher, still in the Army as a captain, helping James Penney, a Vietnam War veteran who has recently been made redundant at work and had his car stolen. When Penney unknowingly becomes a fugitive (after he accidentally burns down two neighbours' houses in the course of deliberately burning down his own in an act of frustration after being fired), Reacher helps Penney obtain a new identity so he can start a new life. The story has appeared in Fresh Blood 3 (1999), an anthology of mystery short stories edited by Mike Ripley and Maxim Jakubowski, [6] and in Thriller (2006), a short story anthology of thrillers written by International Thrillers, Inc. members and edited by James Patterson. [ citation needed] "High Heat" [ edit ] To get answers will be even harder. There are people in this hostile, empty place who would rather die, than reveal their secrets. But then, if Reacher is coming after you, you might be better off dead. I really enjoyed working with Cruise. He's a really, really nice guy. We had a lot of fun. But ultimately the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important and it's a big component of who he is...So what I've decided to do is – there won't be any more movies with Tom Cruise. Instead we're going to take it to Netflix or something like that. Long-form streaming television, with a completely new actor. We're rebooting and starting over and we're going to try and find the perfect guy. [30] The settings for many of the novels are found within the United States of America, in locales ranging from major metropolitan areas like New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., to small rural towns in the Midwestern United States and Southern United States. Reacher's travels outside the United States have taken him to rural England ( The Hard Way, Maybe They Have a Tradition), London ( Personal), Hamburg ( Night School) and Paris ( The Enemy, Personal).