The Drifter, by Nick Petrie

For people who love a good loner-vigilante story a la Jack Reacher, Nick Petrie's The Drifter is a good place to start.  This is the first novel of five (so far) in the Peter Ash series.  Ash is a Marine who, after tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, suffers from a form of PTSD.  He can't stand to be indoors.  After living in the mountains for a few months, he hears about a buddie's suicide.  To work off his grief and the guilt he feels for not being there to support his buddy, he shows up at the widow's house, claiming to be part of a Marine veterans' home repair program.

He does some repairs (out of his own pocket, of course--the program is a fiction he made up as a cover) but while he's there, he discovers that his buddy may have been involved in some criminal activity, and may not have committed suicide after all.  He gets the attention of the local bad guys and begins to unravel the threads of a plot that is much bigger than he would have ever imagined.

The comparison to Reacher is what drew me to Petrie.  Lee Child himself offers a strong endorsement.  Ash is his own man, but the comparisons to Reacher are apt.  He has the same propensity to lay low when he can, but to kick butt if he must.  Petrie focuses on PTSD and the plight of returning combat veterans.  He is not a combat vet himself, and I appreciate the sensitivity and humility with which he approaches the subject.

Is Petrie the next great action novelist?  I don't know.  The Drifter was an entertaining read, enough so that I would consider picking up book two.