The Sentinel

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The edge-of-your-seat, heart-in-mouth new Jack Reacher thriller for 2020 - his 25th adventure. No one's bigger than Jack Reacher.

The edge-of-your-seat, heart-in-mouth new Jack Reacher thriller for 2020 - his 25th adventure. No one's bigger than Jack Reacher.


Jack Reacher gets off the bus in a sleepy no-name town outside Nashville, Tennessee. He plans to grab a cup of coffee and move right along.

Not going to happen.

The town has been shut down by a cyber attack. At the centre of it all, whether
he likes it or not, is Rusty Rutherford. He's an average IT guy, but he knows more than he thinks.

As the bad guys move in on Rusty, Reacher moves in on them . . .

And now Rusty knows he's protected, he's never going to leave the big man's side.

Reacher might just have to stick around and find out what the hell's gone wrong . . . and then put it right, like only he can.

***

'Jack Reacher is today's James Bond, a thriller hero we can't get enough of.' Ken Follett

'If you haven't read any Jack Reacher, you have a treat in store . . . a hitchhiker without a phone, a one-man force for good.' - The Times

'A contemporary version of the knight in shining armour . . . Reacher is a mythic figure.' Literary Review

'Jack Reacher is a wonderfully epic hero; tough, taciturn, yet vulnerable... Irresistible.' People

'Jack Reacher has long since earned his prominent place in the pantheon of cool, smart-talking American heroes.' New York Times

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Chapter 1 Rusty Rutherford emerged from his apartment on a Monday morning, exactly one week after he got fired. He spent the first few days after the ax fell with his blinds drawn, working through his stockpile of frozen pizzas and waiting for the phone to ring. Significant weaknesses, the dismissal letter said. Profound failure of leadership. Basic and fundamental errors. It was unbelievable. Such a distortion of the truth. And so unfair. They were actually trying to pin the town's recent problems on him. It was . . . a mistake. Plain and simple. Which meant it was certain to be corrected. And soon. The hours crawled past. His phone stayed silent. And his personal email silted up with nothing more than spam. He resisted for another full day, then grabbed his old laptop and powered it up. He didn't own a gun or a knife. He didn't know how to rappel from a helicopter or parachute from a plane. But still, someone had to pay. Maybe his real-­life enemies were going to get away with it. This time. But not the villains in the videogames a developer buddy had sent him. He had shied away from playing them, before. The violence felt too extreme. Too unnecessary. It didn't feel that way anymore. His days of showing mercy were over. Unless . . . His phone stayed silent. Twenty-­four hours later he had a slew of new high scores and a mild case of dehydration, but not much else had changed. He closed the computer and slumped back on his couch. He stayed there for the best part of another day, picking at random from a stack of blu rays he didn't remember buying and silently begging the universe to send him back to work. He would be different, he swore. Easier to get along with. More patient. Diplomatic. Empathetic, even. He would buy donuts for everyone in the office. Twice a month. Three times, if that would seal the deal . . . His phone stayed silent. He didn't often drink, but what else was there left to do? The credits began to roll at the end of another disk. He couldn't stomach another movie so he retreated to the kitchen. Retrieved an unopened bottle of Jim Beam from the back of a cabinet. Returned to the living room and put a scratchy old Elmore James LP on the turntable. He wound up asleep, facedown on the floor, after--­he wasn't sure how long. All he knew was that when he woke up his head felt like it was crammed full of rocks, shifting and grinding as if they were trying to burst out of his skull. He thought the pain would never end. But when his hangover did finally pass he found himself experiencing a new emotion. Defiance. He was an innocent man, after all. None of the bad things that had happened were his fault. That was for damn sure. He was the one who'd foreseen them. Who'd warned his boss about them. Time after time. In public and in private. And who'd been ignored. Time after time. So after seven days holed up alone, Rutherford decided it was time to show his face. To tell his side of the story. To anyone who would listen. He took a shower and dug some clothes out of his closet. Chinos and a polo shirt. Brand new. Somber colors, with logos, to show he meant business. Then he retrieved his shoes from the opposite corners of the hallway where he'd flung them. Scooped up his keys and sunglasses from the bookcase by the door. Stepped out into the corridor. Rode down in the elevator, alone. Crossed the lobby. Pushed through the heavy revolving door and paused on the sidewalk. The mid-­morning sun felt like a blast furnace and its sudden heat drew beads of sweat from his forehead and armpits. He felt a flutter of panic. Guilty people sweat. He'd read that somewhere, and the one thing he was desperate to avoid was looking guilty. He glanced around, convinced that everyone would be staring at him, then forced himself to move. He picked up the pace, feeling more conspicuous than if he'd been walking down the street naked. But the truth was that most of the people he passed didn't even notice he was there. In fact, only two of them paid him any attention at all. The same time Rusty Rutherford was coming out of his apartment, Jack Reacher was breaking into a bar. He was in Nashville, Tennessee, seventy-­five miles north and east of Rutherford's sleepy little town, and he was searching for the solution to a problem. It was a practical matter, primarily. A question of physics. And biology. Specifically, how to suspend a guy from a ceiling without causing too much permanent damage. To the ceiling, at least. He was less concerned about the guy. The ceiling belonged to the bar. And the bar belonged to the guy. Reacher had first set foot in the place a little over a day earlier. On Saturday. Almost Sunday, because it was close to midnight by the time he got into town. His journey had not been smooth. The first bus he rode caught on fire and its replacement got wedged under a low bridge after its driver took a wrong turn twenty miles out. Reacher was stiff from the prolonged sitting when he eventually climbed out at the Greyhound station so he moved away to the side, near the smokers' pen, and took a few minutes to stretch the soreness out of his muscles and joints. He stood there, half-­hidden in the shadows, while the rest of the passengers milled around and talked and did things with their phones and reclaimed their luggage and gradually drifted away. Reacher stayed where he was. He was in no hurry. He'd arrived later than expected, but that was no major problem. He had no appointments to keep. No meetings to attend. No one was waiting for him, getting worried or getting mad. He'd planned to find a place to stay for the night. A diner, for some food. And a bar where he could hear some good music. He should still be able to do all those things. He'd maybe have to switch the order around. Maybe combine a couple of activities. But he'd live. And with some hotels, the kind Reacher preferred, it can work to show up late. Especially if you're paying cash. Which he always did. Music first, Reacher decided. He knew there was no shortage of venues in Nashville, but he wanted a particular kind of place. Somewhere worn. With some history. Where Blind Blake could have played, back in the day. Howlin' Wolf, even. Certainly nowhere new, or gentrified, or gussied up. The only question was how to find a place like that. The lights were still on in the bus depot, and a handful of people were still working or waiting or just keeping themselves off the street. Some of them were bound to be local. Maybe all of them were. Reacher could have asked for directions. But he didn't go in. He preferred to navigate by instinct. He knew cities. He could read their shape and flow like a sailor can sense the direction of the coming waves. His gut told him to go north, so he set off across a broad triangular intersection and on to a vacant lot, strewn with rubble. The heavy odor of diesel and cigarettes faded behind him, and his shadow grew longer in front as he walked. It led the way to rows of narrow, parallel streets lined with similar brick buildings, stained with soot. It felt industrial, but decayed and hollow. Reacher didn't know what kinds of businesses had thrived in Nashville's past, but whatever had been made or sold or stored it had clearly happened around there. And it clearly wasn't happening anymore. The structures were all that remained. And not for much longer, Reacher thought. Either money would flow in and shore them up, or they'd collapse. Reacher stepped off the crumbling sidewalk and continued down the center of the street. He figured he'd give it another two blocks. Three at the most. If he hadn't found anything good by then he'd strike out to the right, toward the river. He passed a place that sold part-­worn tires. A warehouse that a charity was using to store donated furniture. Then, as he crossed the next street, he picked up the rumble of a bass guitar and the thunder of drums. The sound was coming from a building in the center of the block. It didn't look promising. There were no windows. No signage. Just a thin strip of yellow light escaping from beneath a single wooden door. Reacher didn't like places with too few potential exits so he was inclined to keep walking. But as he drew level, the door opened. Two guys, maybe in their late twenties with sleeveless T-­shirts and a smattering of anemic tattoos, stumbled out onto the sidewalk. Reacher moved to avoid them, and at the same moment a guitar began to wail from inside. Reacher paused. The riff was good. It built and swelled and soared, and just as it seemed to be done and its final note was dying away, a woman's voice took over. It was mournful, desperate, agonizing, like a conduit to a world of the deepest imaginable sorrow. Reacher couldn't resist. He stepped across the threshold. Excerpted from The Sentinel: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child, Andrew Child All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Jack Reacher returns in the 25th book in the series (after Blue Moon). The big franchise news is that Child and his brother, thriller writer Andrew Grant (False Witness), will cowrite several Reacher novels before Child hands over the reins to his brother, who also inherits the "Child" name. In this first collaboration, Reacher stops in Nashville, where he quickly "adjudicates" a dispute between a local band and a club owner. Then he heads out of town and straight into more trouble in a small burg 75 miles south of Nashville. The town's computer systems have been hacked and ransomed, and everyone blames Rusty Rutherford, the town's IT person. Rusty meets Reacher when Reacher saves him from an attempted kidnapping. He stays on to help Rusty untangle the motivations of his would-be abductors. Reacher encounters cops good and bad, Russian thugs, a mysterious millionaire, fierce women, and lots of people he just has to beat up. VERDICT Longtime fans will be satisfied with this straightforward adventure filled with familiar Reacherisms and more depth. He even acquires a cell phone, briefly. Those who enjoy Grant's "David Trevellyan" series will also enjoy this book. It's fun--but also difficult--to try to discern which brother wrote what.--Liz French, Library Journal

Booklist Review

If we assume the Jack Reacher novels follow a strictly accurate chronology, then the former military cop turns 60 this year. His creator, Lee Child, turns 66, which may help to explain why Child has enlisted his younger brother, novelist Andrew Grant, as his coauthor and eventual inheritor of the Reacher series: Lee Child (real name: James Grant) wants to retire. But he doesn't want Jack to retire. The Sentinel is the first novel credited to Child and Grant, and--prepare to let out a big breath--it's terrific. Sure, the writing style is ever-so-slightly different (Child's writing is terser than Child and Grant's), but the story is just as powerful. A man is wrongly accused of setting in motion events that proved catastrophic to a Tennessee town; a group of villains are intensely interested in getting their hands on the man, although their reasons are vaguely defined at the outset. Reacher wanders into the middle of it all and winds up risking his life to save another's. Brutal action mixes with keen-eyed detective work as Reacher metes out his own brand of justice. It's always a risk when someone who has written a series since its beginning turns over the reins to a new writer, but if this novel is a harbinger of what's to come, then Jack is in good hands.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Jack Reacher fans' concern about Lee Child's decision to bow out of the series proves unwarranted in this terrific first Reacher novel coauthored by both Child and his brother, Andrew Grant.

Kirkus Book Review

Brothers Lee and Andrew Child collaborate on this fast-paced thriller, 25th in the Jack Reacher series. Reacher forces a bar manager to pay two Nashville musicians being cheated out of their night's pay. You don't mess with Reacher, an ex-Army MP who is 6-feet-5 and 250 pounds, but if you try to hurt someone he'll mess with you. So when he witnesses bad guys (who turn out to be Russians) trying to kidnap a man, Reacher comes to the rescue. Said rescuee is Rusty Rutherford, who has been unjustly fired from his job as a nearby town's IT manager. Locally, everyone hates Rusty because of a disaster with the town's computers. But Reacher goes to great lengths to protect him. A police officer asks, "Why do you care so much about Rusty Rutherford? No one else does." Turns out he may have "something a certain foreign power is desperate to get its hands on." Someone is "specifically trying to erode faith in the election system itself." (Well, that's a ridiculous premise--who would ever mess with American elections?) Reacher is a most entertaining character: His "default was to move extremely slow or extremely fast," and in this Tennessee town he does lots of the latter. He needs to, with guys like Denisov, a Russian interrogator who has the "ability to loosen tongues. And bowels." Smart but not especially deep, Reacher is decidedly low-tech, unfamiliar with computers or cellphones. And of course he's a larger-than-life fighter who can really give evildoers what they deserve. Other than that, he sees a problem, fixes it, and moves on. The story's style is crisp, sometimes too much so. Plenty of short sentences. Like this. And it can grate. Or maybe it's great. You decide. The plot, the pace, and the punches will keep Child fans satisfied. Reach for this one. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.