No Plan B: The unputdownable new Jack Reacher thriller from the No.1 bestselling authors

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Reacher and Hannah formed an alliance to find out the truth. A father in Chicago loses his son. A fifteen-year-old foster boy from Los Angeles searching for his dad. Everyone heads to Winson, Mississippi. Having been dissatisfied after listening to the first 'official' collaboration between Lee (Grant) Child and his brother, Andrew (Grant) Child, "#25, The Sentinel" (3-Stars, but on re-reading my review, I think I was being generous), I decided to skip "#26, Better Off Dead" and see what delights awaited me in "#27, No Plan B". The truth about Reacher gets better and better. . . . This series [is] utterly addictive.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times The Jed Starmer plot line is superfluous. Take him out of the story and nothing is lost but maybe 5,000 words. If it isn't careful, PRH is going to milk this cash cow dry with an annual publishing schedule that takes the loyal reader for granted (Now there's a corporate conspiracy plot line Reacher should investigate). I'd rather wait 18 months for a well-conceived story line than get another "No Plan B" threadbare "Reacher" story in a year.

There’s a crime sitting behind all of the mystery at the center of this book, but it’s really only presented as an aside with very little substance provided. It’s a dark, horrifying crime that may be difficult to come to terms with and if more was revealed about it, I may have been more convinced about Reacher’s actions when he reached Winson. As it is, Reacher appears to be heading further and further down the psychopathic path than ever. (Not a criticism, just an observation). The boy who left Los Angeles bound for Winson - Jed Sturmer. Jed seems a bit of a random piece to the puzzle (but not the most random!) and his journey cross country is an eventful one, fraught with all of the dangers you might expect a young, naive boy on the run might fall into. Clearly his path is going to cross with Reacher's; it's just a matter of where, when and how it will influence the outcome of Reacher’s quest. Although, so far, the co-written novels in this long-running series haven’t matched up to many of the earlier ones, in No Plan B there are signs that there could be life left in the series yet. But Reacher is unaware that these crimes are part of something much larger and more far-reaching: an arsonist out for revenge, a foster kid ontherun,a cabal of powerful people involved in a secret conspiracy with many moving parts. There is no room for error, but they make a grave one. They don’t consider Reacher a threat. “There’s too much at stake to start running from shadows.” But Reacher isn’t a shadow.He is flesh and blood.And relentless when it comes to making things right. This is full of action and intrigue and can be read as a standalone. I think this is the best Andrew Child yet. I squirm at a certain scene...brutal, but Reacher is still my hero.💓The Child team proves to be master storytellers as they weave into the narrative two other sub-plots that move parallel to the main plot until they all collide and coalesce into an unexpected and explosive denouement. We learn about fifteen year old Jed, while living with foster parents, learns that his birth mother is dying of stage four pancreatic cancer and on her death bed finally tells him the truth about his father. Suddenly he departs from Los Angeles, intent on making a long journey that will necessitate many Greyhound buses. At the same time Reacher was wired to move toward danger. To confront it. To defeat it, or die trying. It was baked into his DNA. There is No Plan B when the threat is Reacher. He is 6'5", 250 lbs. and scruffy. You can't miss him. So why must the bad guys constantly try him? Underestimate him? Square up against him? Maybe the better question is why the author(s) continue putting Reacher in unnecessary situations where he has to fight his way out and drop countless bodies. For why?! But Reacher is unaware that these crimes are part of something much larger and more far-reaching: an arsonist out for revenge, a foster kid on the run, a cabal of powerful people involved in a secret conspiracy with many moving parts. There is no room for error, but they make a grave one. They don’t consider Reacher a threat. “There’s too much at stake to start running from shadows.” But Reacher isn’t a shadow. He is flesh and blood. And relentless when it comes to making things right. There is a noticeable difference in style of writing, now that Andrew has joined the writing team, perhaps a bit less warmth about our hero, but I'm happy to see there is still an occasional bit of humor to lighten things up.

The tragic tale of a wrongly convicted man. He wondered what it had to do with Angela. Which made him think of another tragic tale. One that was just beginning. For the little girl in the wallet photo. Angela's daughter. Who would now have to grow up without a mother. Plus he had a wife at home. And a son. The kid was in his twenties now but he was still a liability. Financially speaking. [He] had all kinds of expenses to take care of. Cars. Food. Clothes. Medical bills.Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. It’s an action/adventure mystery consisting of three to four plots, each plot seemingly having no relationship to any other--which means we keep skipping from plot to plot, all the while wondering what and where the “big reveal” will be. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come until the very end, by which time Reacher has engaged in more than his share of brutal violence--including a killing that is exceedingly grotesque. And when the reveal does come, it’s not very credible Since there wasn't enough intrigue to pull me into the plot, I had plenty of time to be irked by the writing style. This story is as always very entertaining escapism, with lots of action and violence. This plot would definitely make a great Prime Video movie with a crew of unscrupulous bad guys carrying out their sneaky plans and eliminating anyone who stands in their way. The evil corporate conspiracy trope has become cliche--variations of it have become too common in the series.