A Wanted Man concludes a sort of trilogy of "Jack Reacher wandering around the upper midwest." In 61 Hours, he is in South Dakotah. He's blown up at the end of that book, but survives and finds his way to a tiny town in Nebraska in Worth Dying For. At the end of Worth Dying For, he's dropped off at the highway, where he's picked up shortly after at the beginning of A Wanted Man. I'm sure some fan has done a timeline of these three books. Let's just say it was a very eventful couple of weeks for Jack Reacher.
The people who pick him up seem to be a trio traveling together for business. As long as they get him closer to Virginia, he doesn't really care. But when he figures out that the woman is a hostage, and the two men might be the men the state troopers at the road blocks are looking for, his ride gets much more interesting. Of course, Reacher's insatiable curiosity and personal quest for justice will not allow him to let anything go. He commandeers a sheriff's car for a while, flees from justice when an APB goes out for him, and finally recruits a couple of FBI agents to help him take down dozens of criminals.
I enjoyed A Wanted Man because I love Reacher's character, his deliberate way of figuring everything out, and his skill at staying alive and getting the bad guys. But for this book, the whole interconnected criminal enterprise seemed cobbled together and incomplete, and the big, final confrontation was too rushed and unoriginal. This, of course, is in comparison to other Reacher novels. A Wanted Man still ranks above most action-oriented fiction. So Reacher fans will not want to miss this one, especially to fill in the gap between Worth Dying For and his arrival in Virginia, in Never Go Back. When I say it's not Child's best, it's still pretty darn good.
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