While the Jack Reacher books have never been all that focused on continuity, the past few books (starting with 61 Hours) have found Jack Reacher making his way towards a woman whose voice he became fascinated with over the phone. Never Go Back begins with Reacher finally making it to his old unit headquarters to meet Major Turner, only to find her missing and himself forcibly re-enlisted into the Army in order to make him face assault charges and a possible child support case as well. That's a great hook for a book, and in typical form, Lee Child's newest book more than lives up to that hook, turning Reacher from the usual predator into the man on the run and trying to figure out what's really going on. Are the charges genuine? Even if they are, what's brought them back into the spotlight? And what, if anything, does Major Turner have to do with all of this? The final answer at the book's end is, admittedly, a little anti-climactic and simple, but that doesn't really detract from how massively entertaining Never Go Back is. Putting Reacher on the run is a nice reversal for the series, and the axe hanging over his head gives the book a great sense of tension that drives the narrative along. Moreover, it's to Child's credit that the assault and the child questions aren't foregone conclusions; while we may suspect that both are fictional, Reacher's behavior certainly wouldn't rule either out. The child support is a little extraneous feeling, at times, and results in at least one scene that feels oddly out of place in the book, but in general, Child weaves it into the conspiracy nicely, using it to illuminate some things and to mask others. It all ends up being a satisfying and really fun read, and if there are a couple of anticlimactic moments near the end, they never ruin the book; indeed, they barely matter - they're just the answers to the MacGuffin that's driving the book, and if the ride is fun, who really cares what it's all about that much?
- Josh Mauthe
- Josh Mauthe
