Sometimes You Just Want a Man With Skills… and Zero Emotional Baggage
I just finished The Hard Way by Lee Child and I loved it! Jack Reacher is back to stomping around New York like a one-man wrecking ball with superb manners. This one hooked me immediately. The setup is clean, sharp, and about as subtle as a brick through a window. Reacher helps a guy whose wife and daughter have been kidnapped… and somehow this “simple” good-deed moment unravels into layers of mercenaries, messy marriages, bad decisions, and a whole lot of 'wait...what?'
This is one of those books where Reacher does what he does best: Observe, deduce, intimidate, and occasionally remind a man that bones can bend before they break. No wandering, no filler chapters about someone’s potato salad recipe, no steamy sex scenes, just straight, relentless pacing. I loved the supporting characters and the twist at the end that I never saw coming.
My only complaint is that now I want more Reacher, immediately, and unfortunately time does not allow me to ignore everything else in my life to binge the rest of the entire series (although I have considered it). Excellent book. A total return to what makes Reacher Reacher: decisive, unbothered, and eighteen steps ahead of everyone else.
