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Critic's Corner
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BAD LUCK and TROUBLE Somewhere above the California desert Calvin Franz with two broken legs is sent free-falling from a helicopter. In Chicago, Frances Neagley sends a frantic coded message for help. Jack Reacher receives that message and is plunged into the heart of a conspiracy that is killing old friends... and is on his way to bad luck and trouble.
In typical Lee Child Reacher knows if Neagley was calling for his help it wasn't because she'd lost her car keys. She was one tough customer, always had been. Past association with her taught Reacher that Neagley allowed nothing to stand in her way, not even the law. Upon contacting Neagley, he learns that their old comrade Franz has been murdered. She wants him to put their army Investigator's team back together and find who killed their buddy. Of the nine member team only Reacher has responded to her SOS. Why? Any of them would or should have been easier to locate than Reacher, yet only he had responded to her call. A decade post military, Reacher has an ATM card and the clothes on his back—no phone, no ties, and no address. Frances found him through his bank using a code known only to the former members of their elite team of army investigators. Swan, Sanchez, Lowrey, Orozco, O'Donnell, and Dixon all had permanent jobs with known addresses. Nothing short of death would keep any one of them from responding to her summons. Neagley and Reacher meet in Los Angeles and find themselves under surveillance by two L.A. County Sheriff deputies, Thomas Brant and his superior, Curtis Mauney. Reacher also learns that both Sanchez and Orozco have been missing for three weeks. Within 24 hours both David O'Donnell and Karla Dixon show up at the meeting place and the hunt is on. The question is, who is hunting who? For whatever reason Brant and Mauney are planning on Franz's murder to get the Investigators to come together. We see them tailing the four to Franz's home in the suburbs of L.A. when the group meets Franz's wife. She tells them that Lowery died several years ago in a car wreck, so one more of the team is accounted for. When Reacher confronts the deputies he learns that they are hoping for help in solving Franz's murder, and that someone is hunting the Investigators. At least that's what the two tell Reacher. The plot thickens when a man with four aliases comes onto the scene carrying $65 million in diamonds and negotiable bearer bonds. These are traded for a truck load of devices capable of being used in a terrorist's attack either on the U.S. or overseas. The Investigators soon learn from Franz's former employer, The New Age Defense Corporation, that these electronics are made to enable a new and secret missile. This is a thriller that grows darker by the day. The deeper the team digs, the more they don't know about other comrades who have suddenly gone missing—and a trail that leads into the neon of Vegas and the darkness of international terrorism. A ticking clock is in play as the team tries to find their missing
friends, and keep the missiles out of enemy hands. Friends unavenged.
Friends abandoned. That's not acceptable. Then, as fans of Child's Jack Reacher series Copyright 2007, Patricia Ann Jones Order Bad Luck and Trouble Jones is a published writer and book reviewer for Tulsa World newspaper. To comment on this review you may email pattij777@aol.com |
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fashion, the author takes readers into another Jack
Reacher unputdownable thriller.
from Amazon.com
