Worth Dying For by Lee Child

 (Jack Reacher #15)

400 pages / 13 hrs, 45 mins

"There’s deadly trouble in the corn county of Nebraska . . . and Jack Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it’s the unsolved, decades-old case of a missing child that Reacher can’t let go.
 
"The Duncans want Reacher gone—and it’s not just past secrets they’re trying to hide. For as dangerous as the Duncans are, they’re just the bottom of a criminal food chain stretching halfway around the world. For Reacher, it would have made much more sense to put some distance between himself and the hard-core trouble that’s bearing down on him. For Reacher, that was also impossible."  --from the publisher

This installment seemed bloodier than is typical of the series. I was disappointed in the story (or lack thereof) and characters. Reacher's cause was "worth dying for," but I'm not sure this story is worth reading. I give it two out of five stars.

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child

 (Jack Reacher #13)

441 pages / 14 hrs, 47 mins

"New York City. Two in the morning. A subway car heading uptown. Jack Reacher, plus five other passengers. Four are okay. The fifth isn't.

"In the next few tense seconds Reacher will make a choice and trigger an electrifying chain of events in this gritty, gripping masterwork of suspense by #1 New York Times best seller Lee Child.

"Susan Mark was the fifth passenger. She had a lonely heart, an estranged son, and a big secret. Reacher, working with a woman cop and a host of shadowy feds, wants to know just how big a hole Susan Mark was in, how many lives had already been twisted before hers, and what danger is looming around him now.

"Because a race has begun through the streets of Manhattan in a maze crowded with violent, skilled soldiers on all sides of a shadow war. Susan Mark's plain little life was critical to dozens of others in Washington, California, Afghanistan...from a former Delta Force operator now running for the U.S. Senate, to a beautiful young woman with a fantastic story to tell and to a host of others who have just one thing in common: They're all lying to Reacher. A little. A lot. Or maybe just enough to get him killed."  --from the publisher

This one was just okay for me. A lot of the writing seemed unnecessary to the plot, and I can always do without the torture scenes--even when they aren't too graphic. I give it three out of five stars.

Nothing to Lose by Lee Child

 (Jack Reacher #12)

407 pages / 13 hrs, 55 mins

"It wasn’t the welcome Reacher expected. He was just passing through, minding his own business. But within minutes of his arrival a deputy is in the hospital and Reacher is back in Hope, setting up a base of operations against Despair, where a huge, seething walled-off industrial site does something nobody is supposed to see . . . where a small plane takes off every night and returns seven hours later . . . where a garrison of well-trained and well-armed military cops—the kind of soldiers Reacher once commanded—waits and watches . . . where above all two young men have disappeared and two frightened young women wait and hope for their return.

"Joining forces with a beautiful cop who runs Hope with a cool hand, Reacher goes up against Despair—against the deputies who try to break him and the rich man who tries to scare him—and starts to crack open the secrets, starts to expose the terrifying connection to a distant war that’s killing Americans by the thousand.

"Now, between a town and the man who owns it, between Reacher and his conscience, something has to give. And Reacher never gives an inch."  --from the publisher

A good story, but too preachy for me. I give it three out of five stars.