Night School by Lee Child

Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child --- 369 pages

Child's 21st Reacher novel takes us back in time to 1996. Major Jack Reacher, U.S. Army MP, is awarded his second Legion of Merit for the precision strike that took out two war criminals from the 1992-1995 Bosnian Genocide. Swift, summary justice, Reacher style, 

Meanwhile, recently reunited Germany is experiencing a resurgence of Fascism amid the first stirrings of Islamist extremism among its growing immigrant population. A double agent embedded in a terrorist cell sends a warning: an "American" is negotiating the sale of something to the leaders of a group that sounds like Al Qaeda hiding out in remote tribal country in Afghanistan. Whatever the American is selling, he wants one hundred million dollars for it and the mujahideen are willing to pay his price. 

Reacher is part of an elite team the National Security Council is hoping can identify the American and stop the sale, Hamburg is where the transfer will occur once the money has been deposited in the American's Swiss bank account. Unfortunately the local neo-Nazis are also keen to snatch the prize. And of course in 1996 secret agents still have to operate without benefit of the World Wide Web or cell phones, much less smart phones or CSI technology.

Night School is a little subdued at the start but the story grows on you as it unfolds. Child keeps his style lean and sharp, his hero bigger than life, 

Click HERE for a feature story on Lee Child from the New York Times.

Click HERE for a review from the London Evening Standard.

Click HERE for a review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE for a review from the Washington Post.

Blood on the Water by Anne Perry

Blood on the Water: A William Monk Novel by Anne Perry --- 309 pages

In this twentieth volume in Perry's best-seller William Monk series set in Victorian England, Perry has focused on a situation that will resonate with modern readers: a terrorist attack resulting in the deaths of innocent bystanders. In this instance, Monk, the Commander of the Thames River Police, is an eye witness when a bomb blows up a riverboat pleasure cruise, killing two hundred men, women and children injured by the explosion or trapped in the sinking boat, or drowned in the darkness and confusion despite desperate efforts to rescue survivors. Just before the explosion, Monk himself witnessed a man jump off the ship and saw the man being picked up by a small craft waiting nearby.

Monk and his men have already begun to investigate this lead when he is abruptly informed that because the bombing has political implications, the investigation is being taken over by the Metropolitan Police. It seems this is justified when the new investigators quickly make an arrest: an Egyptian immigrant with an unsavory past and a known grudge against the British occupation of Egypt. The man is quickly tried, found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.

But when Monk uncovers evidence, while pursuing another case, that shows that the convicted man was somewhere else when the boat exploded, he knows that others must be involved in the crime. The man in prison might have been an accomplice, perhaps was set up to be the scapegoat, but was not the one who placed the bomb and lit the fuse.

With the help of his wife, Hester, with her invaluable contacts in society both high and low; their adopted son, Scuff, with his own intimate knowledge of the River; and their friend the disgraced barrister Sir Oliver Rathbone; Monk doggedly pursues the truth that unknown powerful interests are desperate to obscure, putting at risk not just his own life but Hester's life as well.

The Crowded Grave by Martin Walker

The Crowded Grave; A Mystery of the French Countryside by Martin Walker --- 314 pages

The new mystery featuring Bruno Courreges, chief of police in the village of St. Denis, in the Dordogne region of southwestern France.

An interesting juxtaposition of wine, foie gras, animal rights protests, the web of village life, and a corpse discovered in the middle of a potentially significant archeological dig. The corpse creates even more complications tied to old tensions between France and Spain, Basque separatists, grudges dating back to the German occupation during World War II, and modern day terrorist activities.

Meanwhile, Bruno has to deal with an overzealous and inexperienced new magistrate, an old police rival, his current love affair with an expatriate Scotswoman, and the reappearance of his former lover, now making a name for herself in the French intelligence service --- who have just happened to choose St. Denis as the venue for an important ministerial conference between France and Spain.

It takes Walker a little while to establish all these interwoven plot lines. The best part of the book, and what makes the whole series worth the time to read, is the sense of place Walker evokes; the land, the people, the long history and a way of life so different from our own.

A Wanted Man by Lee Child

A Wanted Man: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child --- 405 pages

The seventeenth and latest book in the popular series of suspense thrillers about former Army MP Major Jack Reacher, now his own very independent dispenser of justice.

Reacher's just trying to get from Nebraska to Virginia. There's a woman there he wants to meet. He's only talked to her on the phone a few times, but she intrigues him.

Standing on the eastbound lanes of an Interstate highway interchange in the middle of a cold winter night, with a badly broken nose from his last adventure, Reacher finally thumbs a ride with two guys and a woman headed to Chicago. But as they ride through the night, Reacher senses tension in the car. Little things --- offhand comments and actions --- that don't add up.

What Reacher doesn't know is that some ninety miles from where he was picked up, a man has been found stabbed to death, execution style, in an old pumping station. An eye witness happened to see three men go  into the station but only two come out. Within minutes the county sheriff is on the case. The pumping station provides access to a huge underground aquifer; in this age of terrorism, that's enough to trigger a call to the FBI.

Roadblocks go up on the highways. The APB says two men in a red car; then two men in any kind of car; then two men and a woman in any kind of car. But no one is looking for three men and a woman. Not yet.

All Reacher wanted was a ride to get him down the road towards Virginia. But instead he finds himself in the middle of a massive conspiracy, an undercover terrorism investigation gone bad, and now both the bad guys AND the good guys are gunning for Reacher.  It looks like the only way to extricate himself will require cleaning up the mess that others have made. Once again. So Reacher obliges.