No Plan B: The unputdownable new 2022 Jack Reacher thriller from the No.1 bestselling authors (Jack Reacher, 27)

Product Information

This story had too many subplots generating so many characters, it bogged down a rhythm fraught with frustration trying to keep up.

The story does contain a few familiar Reacher elements: He manages to acquire a female sidekick (yet another Frances Neagley surrogate. As with any long-running series like this, the plot scenario never varies too far from what has always worked well. Lee spends his spare time reading, listening to music, and watching the Yankees, Aston Villa, or Marseilles soccer. There were at least four different points of view, but I had trouble telling them all apart—and for some reason, they kept repeating dialogue.This investigation jumps from Colorado to a prison in Mississippi where something very suspicious is going on and Reacher is determined to find out what. Of the first 26 I gave all 5 star ratings except for four which got four star ratings (mostly recent ones). The authors have kept the series moving along, though anyone could easily pick up a book at any point in the series and be perfectly content. While others think they saw the woman leap, Reacher is sure about what he saw and tells the authorities as much. 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.

Lee is the recipient of many awards, most recently Author of the Year at the 2019 British Book Awards. Reacher is at his laconic best as he implacably tracks down yet another group of wanna-be wreakers of havoc, and the side characters are great too. Reacher, doing his Reacher thing, smells a rat (and we all know he doesn't react well to threats), so he vows to get to the bottom of it even if it takes him halfway across the country. Suddenly he departs from Los Angeles, intent on making a long journey that will necessitate many Greyhound buses.As Lee becomes more and more hands off, Andrew drives the series further and further into the ground. Instead we get side story about a runaway, we get a side story about the bad guys and we get a side story about another bad guy who has nothing to do with the main bad guys (until later). And then the local police disregarded Reacher's witness statement in favor of another "highly respected" person who saw Angela's "suicide. The book came but every single page was wringled as if it was damp anyone else had the same problems. As always, it’s Jack’s determination and singlemindedness of purpose that is compelling just as much as the action.

The plot has four "legs," if you will - and that made it a little tough for me to follow, at least for the first half or so of the book, just because of the number of characters and switchbacks from one to the other. I’d maybe believe the prison warden found ONE guy who had that much artistic or technical talent, but an entire wing of the prison?

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Delacorte Press through Netgalley for an advance copy.