A good reading buddy of mine sent me a note that said I need to get caught up on my Reacher reading. So, here I go. Trying to get a start on that goal. So, in the end this is 4 different stories of varying quality. The average score of this collection is 3 stars out of 5. Lee has three homes—an apartment in Manhattan, a country house in the south of France, and whatever airplane cabin he happens to be in while traveling between the two. In the US he drives a supercharged Jaguar, which was built in Jaguar's Browns Lane plant, thirty yards from the hospital in which he was born. This story has good bones -- it has a compelling lead character, a tight plot, an interesting mystery, believable tension, and a memorable climax -- but comes off the rails due to a few notable shortcomings in the writing. This especially annoyed me because this had such potential to be a tremendously good short story, were it not for these irksome missteps:

Jack Reacher Chronological Order Series by Lee Child - Goodreads Jack Reacher Chronological Order Series by Lee Child - Goodreads

Its the mid-80s, Reacher's a Captain in the Army and is called to Washington to go undercover as an Army sniper. Someone is leaking information from a Congressional investigation into whether the Army and Marines need a new, super-cutting-edge sniper rifle. The Army's got it narrowed down to 4 suspects, they want him to narrow it down. Reacher is repeatedly assured that this will just be talking and that there is "no danger." So, yeah, things are going to get dicey. There really is no plot to speak of. The first third of the story involves a woman jogging and a man driving a car, prior to their lives intersecting. At the same time Reacher is being briefed by Military Intelligence on his mission. Then there's the hearing and after that the end game.

I don't want to spoil your fun, but just here, in those three novellas, we see Reacher as a 12 y/o kid, not only fighting and winning against other guys, much older than him and outnumbering him, but also same time he's solving some kind of mystery doing his own investigation and following his own clues, doing his own deductions and solving a critical case on the base, for the real MP's - military police - of the base that can't solve this case without this 12 y/o kid intervention... It wasn't supposed to be a dangerous assignment: just sit in on the hearings, keep a low profile, and chat up the four women until he figures out which one is the culprit. Using his intuition and powers of observation, he soon learns the truth, but it's something far more sinister than a few leaks about a sniper rifle. And the truth could very well cost him his life as the story built to a suspenseful, violent climax. Well, in my case I am a bit conflicted about this author, about Lee Child, in the sense I really wanted to like him. I am not entirely sure why I want to like him, maybe because he's European in origin living for a long time in the US, like me, maybe because he's writing about events and places happening in the US, maybe because he's looking at the US culture and traditions through the eyes of a European native and translates what most Americans don't really see or feel, maybe because he has the support of the great Steven King and few others in the same league, or maybe because he's writing action, suspense and thriller books that supposedly are a recipe for success, or who knows for what reason, but I really wanted to like him. But I can't, there is something wrong in his books and I'll try to explain it to the best of my abilities as a simple reader.

High Heat: (A Jack Reacher Novella) by Lee Child - Books on

Reacher does get enough clues (naturally) to identify the leak -- not only that, he's able to uncover a whole lot more. Best yet, the book includes a fantastic Reacher fight scene (don't get me wrong, I love it when he uses his brain, but the last two short stories I listened to didn't have a lot of action.). Moving to a new place is always hard and Okinawa is no exception. Reacher must prove himself to the neighborhood bully, he meets a girl and he solves two mysteries. What can I say, it's a Reacher...and he figures it out so easily while I'm sitting here totally stupid. I liked how Child informed us of Reacher's character with his mouthing off to Christopher, his observational skills in figuring out what Christopher's hand movements mean. Without being an info dump, it tells us that Reacher is very good at his job. Then again. we see Reacher, a teen this time, a 16 y/o kid, wandering around New York City in the late 70's when the so-called organized crime like the Italian mob was still ruling the streets, and guess what, our kid, our 16 y/o Reacher, not only that he's fooling a co-ed 19 y/o beautiful young girl to go out with him and give him the time of his life, but at the very same time, he's helping a female FBI agent in her quest to bring down a made man of the Italian mob ruling the streets, where in fact our Reacher is the key in defeating this made man... Christopher hedges so many restrictions around Reacher, I can't imagine how he'll be able to investigate anything. So...naturally...he does. Piece'a cake.Cleaning the Gold (May 2019) Lee and Karin Slaughter co-wrote this story which pairs Reacher with Slaughter’s Will Trent. I enjoyed the short Reacher story Second Son that Child wrote so when I saw this was available in our library I was eager to read it. I had to put it on hold and wait a couple of weeks for it to come in but it was worth it. The Fourth Man (March 2019) originally published as bonus material in Australia’s Past Tense hardcovers, now a digital single in the UK. What is wrong in all this picture, in all those books, is the fact this guy is like a Superman, not just a super-hero, but in a very exaggerated way a Superman type of hero, no matter of other conditions, no matter his age, no matter of the environment, no matter what, this guy is the best in everything, is invincible, with no weakness and with plenty of qualities and traits.