This fun read is a find for Reacher's die-hard fans who yearn to keep the Reacher story going. Diane Capri's novels give fans exactly they're hoping for, reuniting the reader with familiar characters and introducing new, memorable ones.
In this story, Kim Otto, Special Agent with the FBI, is assigned is to track down a trained killer, Retired Army Major Jack Reacher who's suspected in the murder of multiple people in Georgia.
Otto is a tightly-wound, overachiever. The daughter of a Vietnam veteran and a Vietnamese woman, Kim Otto is ninety-eight pounds of dynamite in a ten-pound package.
As the senior agent on the Special Personnel Task Force, she's paired up with Agent Carlos Gaspar, a 44-year-old with four kids. He's recovering from an on-the-job injury that keeps him in constant pain. Otto at times questions his suitability when she catches him limping and popping pain killers.
Gaspar hopes to put in his remaining twenty years and retire to Florida with the family. His calm demeanor both agitates and calms his new partner as he eats and sleeps his way along passing out deadpan remarks like candy.
The pairing of this odd couple adds a light-hearted element as they weave in and out of tricky situations and grow more efficient at guessing one another’s strategies.
Kim Otto finds no track record of Reacher in any of the alphabet agencies. No one seems to know where Reacher is and, more than likely, he doesn't want to be found. He has no footprint on social media, no known address, no phone, and no financial ties. He was last seen 15 years earlier in Margrave, Georgia after a crime syndicate was busted and a bunch of criminals were left dead, likely Reacher’s doing.
“Reacher had investigated, arrested, subdued, and otherwise dealt with some of the most highly trained soldiers on earth, all of them capable of extreme violence. He had done it by matching their violence with his own. He was a killer.”
Flying white-knuckled aboard a pre-dawn flight from Detroit to Atlanta, Agent Otto uses the time to review the case files sent encrypted by her boss. She's been instructed to keep the assignment completely off-the-books and under the radar. There will be no official acknowledgement of her duties which makes her job more difficult.
The more she studies the scant files the less comfortable she becomes with the case. She knows if she messes up her career is in jeopardy.
Before she left home, street-smart and business-savvy Kim Otto had copied the documents into a separate file on a non-shared device. Too many people had access to the general FBI files and too many careers had been destroyed by loose lips.
She’d learned to CYA when it came to assignments.
Otto and Gaspar begin their search by conducting interviews of Reacher’s last known associates starting with Chief Roscoe of the Margrave Police, one of the few remaining officers that were on staff at the time.
To cover their real mission, Otto explains that the FBI Specialized Personnel Task Force is conducting a thorough background investigation of retired major, Jack Reacher. Having been in direct contact with Reacher in the past, Roscoe's was one of the case files sent from the boss.
The secrecy and urgency of the assignment worries Otto as too much information is missing. Having reviewed Reacher’s military file, she knew her task would not be easy. He would be like no candidate she’d investigated before.
“Reacher had investigated, arrested, subdued, and otherwise dealt with some of the most highly trained soldiers on earth, all of them capable of extreme violence. He had done it by matching their violence with his own. He was a killer.”
There had been one strongly-emphasized point in the 3-minute pre-dawn telephone call from Otto’s boss. They were to arrive at the interview location of the first subject no later than 11:30 am. Gaspar and Otto arrived at the Margrave police station by 11:15 am, giving them fifteen minutes to chat up the local Chief of Police before the deadline.
The timing of their arrival proved to be a key factor of the entire operation, putting them in position to investigate a local murder alongside of local law enforcement.
At precisely eleven-thirty a call came into the Chief of Police’s office. Someone’s been murdered and Otto and Gaspar’s interview is interrupted. They convince the Chief to let them tag along to the crime scene. While still in pursuit of their main target, clues took them down a new path that revealed a stash of hidden cash, a treacherous wife and the murder of another police officer.
After taking some photos and making their own private observations, they drive back toward Atlanta to rest and regroup. As they’re checking into their hotel, Otto’s phone rings. It’s her boss. She feels certain he’s planted a GPS tracking device since he always seems to know where she is. Sleep deprived, rain soaked, and hungry, she’s ordered to submit a complete report by ten pm. By ten-thirty, they’re to be on a plane headed for Kennedy Airport in NY.
Their second target interview also has precise timing built into their two am arrival. As time ticks away and their plans falter. Elegant, immaculately dressed, politically well-connected, Finlay shows up late with cryptic bits of knowledge that he keeps close at hand. In a short twenty minutes, the agents realize this assignment goes far deeper than expected and their hopes for a swift conclusion to the assignment are dashed.
Weaving in and out of tricky situations, twists and turns keep the reader turning pages as the agents grow closer to their ultimate target, Jack Reacher.
This fun read meets the needs of Reacher's die-hard fans who want to keep the Reacher story going. A fast-paced crime thriller Diane Capri's novels give fans exactly they're hoping to find when searching for Jack Reacher.
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