Follow The Father
Jack Reacher, is a remarkable character created by Lee Child, a former army man who decided, on leaving his job, that he would never settle down. So he keeps on the move, with just the clothes on his back, some money and his toothbrush in his pocket. He has no destination in mind, and goes wherever a bus, or a car giving him a lift takes him. He stays in any motel on the way, and eats wherever he can—the life of a modern-day gypsy. The very tall, well-built Reacher never looks for trouble, and if at all he gets into a fight, it is to protect someone who needs help. He can beat up the best of them, with his honed instincts, impeccable technique, and hands that are described as “big as dinner plates.”
In Past Tense, the 23rd book of the bestselling series, Jack Reacher finds himself near Laconia, a small town in New Hampshire, and recalls that his father, Stan Reacher, was born there. He decides to go to Laconia and look for the family home.
Meanwhile, in another track, a young Canadian couple, Shorty Fleck and Patty Sundstrom, drive over in a battered car, hoping to start a new life in the US. Their car breaks down, the place where they find themselves stranded has no cell network and no cars driving by. They find a motel deep in the forest, and get a room there, with the cheerful owner promising to get their car fixed the next day. Between one thing and another, they find themselves unable to leave. Mark and his three cohorts, all smiling and helpful, imprison them for a purpose so sinister, that it would be tough for the reader to guess.
The two tracks do not actually converge till much later in the book, but Reacher and Patty have a strange spiritual connection; several times in the book, they wake up at one minute past three, with some kind of primeval warning bell ringing in their brains.
Reacher believes his self-assigned errand is simple—go to the country office, find the record for his family, take a look at the house and leave. But, to his surprise, no Reacher shows up in the search, which just makes him determined to try harder.
He cannot stay out of trouble, however, and fells with one flying fist, in two separate instances, a man harassing a woman, and another beating up an old man. The families of the wounded men have the kind of connections that would have a mob coming after him. Reacher finds a helper in the old man called Burke, who drives him around, when Laconia’s top cop, Brenda Amos wants him out of town to prevent gang shootouts in her peaceful jurisdiction. But, the way things happen, every time she looks up, there’s Reacher breaking her rule, when all he is trying to do is solve the puzzle of the Reacher clan missing from official records.
It’s a surprisingly humorous and fast-paced book, and when Reacher’s laconic character, who leaves a trail of broken bones wherever he goes, encounters the very smart and spunky Patty, there is a savage, fight-to-the-finish climax. For Lee Child fans, a very satisfying read; those who discover Reacher so late in the day, there are twenty-two books to go, and you can’t stop at one.
Past Tense
By Lee Child
Publisher: Delacorte
Pages: 400
No comments:
Post a Comment