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MAKE ME, Lee Child's latest Jack Reacher thriller, has a unique plot twist. Until near the end, neither the reader nor the main characters know what crime has been committed. All any of us know is that two hundred people have died and some criminal enterprise is making a fortune from their deaths. Reacher becomes involved in this situation merely by getting off a train in the middle of nowhere, at a railroad station in a town called"Mother's Rest,"surrounded by miles of wheat fields. He is curious about why the place has this name, so he decides to stop there and find out.
Reacher, as readers of Lee Child's previous books in this series are aware, travels around the country because that is what he does, without luggage or destination, a toothbrush his sole possession. When his clothes get dirty, he buys new ones. He is big and he is tough, ex-military but clever in ways that no training can explain.
As Reacher begins exploring the town, he is being watched. His movements are noted by various residents, and relayed by phone to an unknown party. His path soon crosses that of a detective named Michelle Chang who has come to Mother's Rest at the request of her partner Keever, now missing. Reacher and Chang join forces to discover why Keever wanted her there and what has happened to him. The people watching them believe they are trying to disrupt their criminal enterprise and begin to harass and threaten the pair. As the tale unfolds, Reacher has a number of opportunities to use his unique fighting style to maim and kill the bad guys. In his inimitable fashion, he calculates odds and directions and angles and timing.
Although the center of the crime is definitely the area around Mother's Rest, Reacher and Chang follow their investigation to many places, including Oklahoma, Phoenix and LA. They rent cars and buy plane tickets. They get funds for all this in two ways, by enlisting the aid of a prominent science reporter who sees a book in his future and by stealing money from drug dealers. This latter tactic is pure Jack Reacher, as he sees the world as made up of good guys and bad guys. The bad guys, who prey on the innocent, are fair game.
MAKE ME is a Jack Reacher adventure full of surprises. This time around, the bad guys in town are only one part of a much larger system of evil that is not explained until the book's end. And Reacher is a slightly different person here as well. He begins to appreciate certain aspects of 21st century life, a punch connects and he does not instantly spring back, and his relationship with Chang is perhaps less than casual. Is he growing and changing? What will the next book hold?
§ Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviewed by Anne Corey, August 2015
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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