Book Review : Make Me By Lee Child

 Jack Reacher books are a bit like the Bond movies. If they're the same as the one that went before you feel a little let down but then, if they are totally new and different you aren't sure if you like them anymore. Either way you're guaranteed someone will be a whiny little bitch about it.

Lee Child clearly believes in the adage of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' and he continues to plow the same furrow as always. Thing is, the people who deride him seem to yearn for something new or different, not sure what they are expecting here, Child writes the way he writes, end of story. If it ain't your thing then don't read it.

I certainly haven't tired of reading about Reacher wander into a corrupt little town, unpick a problem, become a thorn in the side for the resident bad guys and go around kicking ass, bedding the attendant beautiful woman then breezing out once he has cracked the problem right open.

It’s set in the current day, with Reacher travelling aimlessly (as ever) and just happening to run into a whole load of trouble. This time he’s on a train passing through a tiny town – called Mother’s Rest  and out of pure curiosity he decides to get off the train, have a look around and move on in a day or two . But as ever with Reacher things are never that simple.

One thing leads to another and he’s soon hopping around to  LA, Chicago, Phoenix, and San Francisco, and   the hidden parts of the internet, accompanied by Chang – a female, ex-FBI private detective – who is “long-limbed and solid, but not where she shouldn’t be”.

I won’t spoil the plot because the book’s neatly constructed so that we (and Reacher) know almost nothing at the start and the plot slowly but surely unfolds. Unlike many Reacher books, where the stories could almost have been set any time in the last 70 years, the plot of this one is bang up to date.

I've noticed some people thought the end was violent - I thought it was in keeping with the type of people that would be involved in the Deep Web .

Despite a suggestion I read in one review you can't suddenly have this eternal loner setting down with a mortgage and an honest job . That would be shit, LC would be pilloried for it and would probably  loose a lot of fans.  Besides he's done that before with Tripwire and The visitor where Reacher found himself with a girlfriend and a house. Child can't have been too keen on that idea because by book 5 the girlfriend had gone to work in London and Reacher was back on the road . Which is where he should be and long may it continue.

If you're a Reacher fan, you'll know what to expect. If not, welcome to the world of Jack Reacher