BAD LUCK and TROUBLE, Lee Child

One of Lee Child’s very best, a page-turner that grabs you at the beginning and doesn’t let go, ever.

Synopsis
From a helicopter high above the empty California desert, a man is sent free-falling into the night…. In Chicago, a woman learns that an elite team of ex–army investigators is being hunted down one by one…. And on the streets of Portland, Jack Reacher—soldier, cop, hero—is pulled out of his wandering life by a code that few other people could understand. From the first shocking scenes in Lee Child’s explosive new novel, Jack Reacher is plunged like a knife into the heart of a conspiracy that is killing old friends…and is on its way to something even worse.

A decade postmilitary, Reacher has an ATM card and the clothes on his back—no phone, no ties, and no address. But now a woman from his old unit has done the impossible. From Chicago, Frances Neagley finds Reacher, using a signal only the eight members of their elite team of army investigators would know. She tells him a terrifying story—about the brutal death of a man they both served with. Soon Reacher is reuniting with the survivors of his old team, scrambling to raise the living, bury the dead, and connect the dots in a mystery that is growing darker by the day. The deeper they dig, the more they don’ t know: about two other comrades who have suddenly gone missing—and a trail that leads into the neon of Vegas and the darkness of international terrorism.

For now, Reacher can only react. To every sound. Every suspicion. Every scent and every moment. Then Reacher will trust the people he once trusted with his life—and take this thing all the way to the end. Because in a world of bad luck and trouble, when someone targets Jack Reacher and his team, they’d better be ready for what comes right back at them.

Richard writes
Bad Luck and Trouble must be ranked very high on Lee Child’s lists of  “excellent books.” This one is top notch from start to finish, page one to the last page.

Child is writes outstanding thriller stories, but this may be top of the list, engaging in everywhere from introductory page to its concluding one.

Jack Reacher, the retired military forces investigator leads a great cast of three other retired military investigators who seek to avenge the murder of three of their old unit. ‘One for all, all for one,’ motto of the Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 novel, Les Trois Mousquetaires.

Reacher’s team is the modern equivalent, a retired squad of uniquely skilled, singularly intelligent military investigators called together to investigate the brutal murder of three members of their old squad. The investigation reveals a conspiracy with the devastating goal equivalent top the 9/11 terrorist attach on the USA.

Child captures the reader’s attention from the outset. More importantly, he engages the reader totally pulling them into more deeply with the turn of each page. The story opens gently, like a comfortable conversation but as more details are revealed the excitement level gets kicked up, more and more.

The book takes the reader on a roller coaster ride of emotions starting with piqued interest, rising to a crescendo of anger and disgust before descending into unquestioned vengeance sought virtual revenge.

A superbly written story that will have you reading very late into the night.

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