This is the best book of the series so far. And I mean it this time.

Darker in tone, considerably more violent, and whoa...what's this?...written in first person, this installment doesn't seem to belong with the previous efforts. But all of these things actually work and make a reader wonder why Child has just been phoning it in for so long. If this is what you're capable of, then why haven't you done it before?

In this chapter, Reacher arrives just in the nick of time to thwart a kidnapping. As the book progresses, you learn that it wasn't "in the nick of time". It was by design and now Reacher is right smack dab in the middle of the family he is trying to infiltrate. The body count is high, the plan is brilliant, and the twists keep coming. More cinematics-- this time, there's a rain-soaked fist fight that would look sooooooooo good in slow motion.

I loved this installment. It's the best one in the series so far.