THE ENEMY by Lee Child (Dell Books, 2011) Original publication 2004. Paperback, 482 pages. Winner of Barry Award for Best Novel 2005, and Nero Award 2005. Nominee for Dilys Award 2005.
Summary from the Goodreads website . . . .
Jack Reacher. Hero. Loner. Soldier. Soldier’s son. An elite military cop, he was one of the army’s brightest stars. But in every cop’s life there is a turning point. One case. One messy, tangled case that can shatter a career. Turn a lawman into a renegade. And make him question words like honor, valor, and duty. For Jack Reacher, this is that case.
New Year’s Day, 1990. The Berlin Wall is coming down. The world is changing. And in a North Carolina “hot-sheets” motel, a two-star general is found dead. His briefcase is missing. Nobody knows what was in it. Within minutes Jack Reacher has his orders: Control the situation. But this situation can’t be controlled. Within hours the general’s wife is murdered hundreds of miles away. Then the dominoes really start to fall.
Two Special Forces soldiers—the toughest of the tough—are taken down, one at a time. Top military commanders are moved from place to place in a bizarre game of chess. And somewhere inside the vast worldwide fortress that is the U.S. Army, Jack Reacher—an ordinarily untouchable investigator for the 110th Special Unit—is being set up as a fall guy with the worst enemies a man can have.
But Reacher won’t quit. He’s fighting a new kind of war. And he’s taking a young female lieutenant with him on a deadly hunt that leads them from the ragged edges of a rural army post to the winding streets of Paris to a confrontation with an enemy he didn’t know he had. With his French-born mother dying—and divulging to her son one last, stunning secret—Reacher is forced to question everything he once believed…about his family, his career, his loyalties—and himself. Because this soldier’s son is on his way into the darkness, where he finds a tangled drama of desperate desires and violent death—and a conspiracy more chilling, ingenious, and treacherous than anyone could have guessed.
My review on the Goodreads website . . . . .
Finally, after much persuasion and middling interest on my part, I read my first Jack Reacher novel. However, I didn't come in cold as I saw both Jack Reacher movies (fairly representative of the series and character, although actor Tom Cruise doesn't match the Reacher physical descriptions very much) and knew about the character from listening to both my wife and brother-in-law enthuse about the series.
I started with this one, even though it's the eighth published Jack Reacher novel, because it begins the Reacher adventures in chronological order. Events take place in early 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the decline of Soviet Russia. In The Enemy, Reacher is an MP officer in the Army and finds himself pulled off an important mission and reassigned to an odd job. There's a good reason for that which doesn't become apparent until more than mid-way through the novel.
A series of murders of military personnel appear random, but are actually linked in ways that Reacher becomes aware of quickly. However, the reasons for the connection are complex and don't make total sense until Reacher begins to unravel the threads in the last third of the book.
This builds slowly (and oftentimes tested my patience) but it's worth staying with. By the last fifty pages I was glued to the book. There are some great subplots here, as well as fully realized and intriguing support characters.
I got a sense of Reacher's emotional makeup as well as where the series may be going with future installments. I like the character. He's independent, has good analytical abilities, a strong sense of honor and justice, and a lot of empathy (even though some of his actions seem rather blunt and final).
I'm glad I finally got around to reading Lee Child. I'll be back for more of this.
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