Past Tense

In this 23rd Reacher story, on a lazy cross-country hitch-hiking tour, Jack detours to the town of Laconia, New Hampshire. The father he hardly knew grew up there, and Jack wants to finally uncover details of his family history.

While Jack searches old records and interviews old residents, a clutch of bad men brutalize innocent travelers for sport at their special country motel. Just in time, the current victims figure out how they might help themselves. Reacher does the rest.

This nuanced, clever story stands apart from most thrillers with Reacher’s heart-tugging past and a charming, not-so-gullible victim couple.

I can’t pick just one, and they’re really all the same. The burly, idiosyncratic title character, an Army veteran, is like a knight-errant, stumbling into colossal evildoings and coolly saving America, the Army, or (occasionally) a pretty woman. The books are popcorn, potato chips, cotton candy – once you pick them up, you’ll rarely read less than a hundred pages. Is it art? Most definitely not. But will it get you through a very bad afternoon? Quite possibly.

The Jack Reacher series is full of action and intrigue. Readers enjoy the hero’s bad attitude and quirky sense of humor. This particular book digs into Jack’s past when he visits his dad’s hometown only to learn that no Reacher has ever lived there. The reason it made this particular “top five best” list is because of a cool, corresponding roots-rock album written by the author and Baltimore based band Naked Blue. The album, Just the Clothes on My Back, will fascinate Jack Reacher fans who are sure to get some inside jokes and remember scenes from the novels.