Short, sharp, sentences; pacy, twisty, plotline; gutsy, gory action - Jack Reacher prevails! What's not to like? ( )

Thriller

(2009) Reacher is on subway near a woman who is exhibiting every trait of a bomber/terrorist. He tries to talk her down when she pulls a gun and commits suicide. He is then drawn in to a plot by Afghan terrorists and must pursue the ring without any official help (again). Very violent at end as he takes down the inner circle led by two women who confront him in a knife fight. Reacher doesn't like knives and winds up strangling the woman who is the head of the ring.KIRKUS REVIEWReacher is riding the subway, riding it to nowhere, or anywhere, his destinations of choice these days. Having decided that the constraints of military life have slipped past burdensome into painfully boring, he's packed in a long and lustrous career. Now he takes his missions where he finds them, and he's about to find a beauty. It's the wee hours, the passenger population sparse, when Reacher spots a woman seated some 30 feet away who intrigues himĄbetter put, she causes the hairs on the back of his neck to rise. Not because she's particularly menacing. Actually, most would construe her as a 40-year-old paradigm of harmlessness, but Reacher has become aware that she conforms precisely to the 11-point ?list of behavioral indicators? passed on to him years back by Israeli counterintelligence. In short, Reacher's convinced he's looking at a suicide bomber. Is he, isn't he, what will happen if he confronts her? Thereby hangs the tale, and before it's fleshed out, Reacher will have had issues with an inimical variety: the NYPD, the FBI, an ambitious would-be U.S. senator with festering secrets, a pair of ferocious Afghan ladies, as programmed to kill as other ladies are to lunch, and an extended line of miscellaneous miscreants dumb enough to engage him.No one kicks butt as entertainingly as Reacher.Pub Date: May 19th, 2009ISBN: 978-0-385-34057-1Page count: 432ppPublisher: DelacorteReview Posted Online: June 24th, 2010Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1st, 2009

Very witty, not so focused on politics ( )

A complete popcorn read. I mean you have to immediately not think too hard about how Reacher constantly stumbles into these major conspiracies. It moves fast and furious. I do wish authors would stop the stupid cliche of having a villain drop their gun and fight hand to hand. Really, I don't think so. They are terrorists they are just going to shoot you. ( )