One Shot (A Jack Reacher novel) by Lee Child, copyright 2005
Jack Reacher is the writer's stock character, a Frederick Forsyth type of hero, a former military policeman, officer, currently living loose, without permanent address (I can't thing why - a loose cannon image perhaps?). Anyway, he is big, aggressive and a know-all to boot but somehow it works. Luckily I found I was reading a large print copy which managed to keep his character within limits. However, it is an uncomfortable size -and when you drop off to sleep it falls on your face, hard.
A rock solid case seems to put James Barr as the certain perpetrator of a massacre in a small Indiana town. Video and other evidence lead to Barr's arrest in bed at home. He will say nothing except "Get Jack Reacher!". It turns out that Barr had done a similar set of killings as a sniper in the army in Kuwait City. Yeah, it is one of those books in a long tradition - at least since the Crusades - that use the reflected 'glory' of characters who have been in a war to impress the reader. And it always works, doesn't it?
Emerson, the detective, Rodin the D.A., his daughter - newly qualified as a lawyer and a nefarious group of violent villains all have a part to play as Reacher gets to know them. As does an old flame of his, Brigadier-General Eileen Q, a military lawyer (How's that for a fantasy ..... whether in judge's wig or general's uniform with pips?) while gradually light is thrown on how the killings were done, by whom and why - although it is almost unnecessary in the end given all the other fun. Enjoyable, nine out of ten.
