Reacher Unchained :
Jack Reacher, is a remarkable character created by bestselling writer Lee Child. He is a former army man who decided, on leaving his job, that he would never settle down. So he keeps on the move, with just the clothes on his back, a toothbrush and some cash in his pocket. He has no destination in mind, and goes wherever a bus, train or a car giving him a lift takes him. He stays in any motel on the way, or sleeps on a park bench, eats wherever he can. When his clothes get too dirty, he just buys another set and discards the old ones—the life of a modern-day gypsy. The very tall, well-built and always unflappable Reacher never looks for trouble, and if at all he gets into a fight, it is to protect someone who needs help. He can beat up the best of them, with his military-honed instincts, impeccable technique, and enormous hands that are described in one of the books as “big as dinner plates.”
Blue Moon, the twenty-fourth Reacher novel, is one his best, in which he walks into a town and single handedly decimates two warring gangs.
He is going nowhere in particular in a Greyhound bus, when he notices a potential pickpocket eyeing an envelope full of cash in the possession of an elderly man named Aaron Shevick. As is his habit, he gets off the bus to keep an eye on Shevick, and prevents a mugging. Then, he insists on escorting the old man home, where he learns that Aaron and his wife are deep in debt to a loan shark. Having sold whatever possessions they had, they are starving to be able to pay the steep interest.
Reacher feels sorry for the old couple. He feeds them first and then decides to deal with their problems—an ailing daughter, lack of money and the mobsters on their backs. What he discovers eventually is that the town is divided between a gang of vicious Albanians and even more murderous Ukrainians. An ordinary man would leave in a hurry, but Reacher thrives on battling bad guys, and soon he is in the middle of a no-holds-barred gang war. He pits one against the other and mops up any human residue of the carnage.
He has no moral qualms about thrashing or killing gangsters, and if there’s an explosion or two in the process, so much the better. Blue Moon moves at a furious pace and just takes a breather to introduce a brave waitress, Abby, who decides to help Reacher. Three of her friends chip in too, because, if there’s one thing Reacher cannot do, it is operate computers and mobile phones.
Blue Moon is not just the most violent Reacher book (such a high body count!), it is also the funniest, with a wry humour that is laugh-out-loud. Makes you wish every crime-infested town had Reacher drifting through.
Blue Moon
By Lee Child
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 368
