The Midnight Line (Jack Reacher Series #22)

by Lee Child

Overview

#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child returns with a gripping new powerhouse thriller featuring Jack Reacher, “one of this century’s most original, tantalizing pop-fiction heroes” (The Washington Post).

Reacher takes a stroll through a small Wisconsin town and sees a class ring in a pawn shop window: West Point 2005. A tough year to graduate: Iraq, then Afghanistan. The ring is tiny, for a woman, and it has her initials engraved on the inside. Reacher wonders what unlucky circumstance made her give up something she earned over four hard years. He decides to find out. And find the woman. And return her ring. Why not?

So begins a harrowing journey that takes Reacher through the upper Midwest, from a lowlife bar on the sad side of small town to a dirt-blown crossroads in the middle of nowhere, encountering bikers, cops, crooks, muscle, and a missing persons PI who wears a suit and a tie in the Wyoming wilderness.

The deeper Reacher digs, and the more he learns, the more dangerous the terrain becomes. Turns out the ring was just a small link in a far darker chain. Powerful forces are guarding a vast criminal enterprise. Some lines should never be crossed. But then, neither should Reacher.

Praise for #1 bestselling author Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series

“There’s a reason why Child is considered the best of the best in the thriller genre.”—Associated Press

“Jack Reacher is today’s James Bond.”—Ken Follett

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525482895
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/24/2018
Series:	Jack Reacher Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lee Child is the author of twenty-four New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher thrillers, with fifteen having reached the #1 position, and the #1 bestselling complete Jack Reacher story collection, No Middle Name. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Lee Child lives in New York City.

Hometown:

Birmingham, England

Date of Birth:

1954

Place of Birth:

Coventry, England

Education:

Sheffield University

Website:

http://www.leechild.com

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Midnight Line"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Lee Child.
Excerpted by permission of Diversified Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

The pieces of the plot come together as Reacher's military pride and the community's illicit opioid use intersect. The bad actors are nominally the dealers, but The Midnight Line doesn't demonize its villains the way Child's books usually do. And the addicts aren't dismissed or treated as stereotypes. The book voices strong convictions about the issues that are raised here, and it's no stretch given Reacher's principled military background. The last chapters have more emotional heft than anything Child has written before.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

Each year Lee Child comes up with another Reacher. Each year I lap it up. Love it . . . Here, there is something subversive as well as page-turning. . . . I don’t know another author so skilled at making me turn the page, at putting me in the thick of it all.”—The Times
 
“Reacher is the purest distillation of the white knight in contemporary mystery fiction. This novel is a tightly plotted ride with characters who will break your heart and linger after you close the book.”—Mystery Scene
 
“Reacher [is] one of the most alluring and popular characters in contemporary fiction. . . . As always in a Child novel, pace is fast, twists and turns surprise, characters are well-developed, dialogue is exactly right, and the plot is very plausible. . . . Highly entertaining . . . This one is among the best [in the series]. It doesn’t matter in what order you read them since each stands entirely on its own.”—The Washington Times
 
“A timely, affecting, suspenseful and morally complex thriller. . . . One of the best thrillers I’ve read this year.”—The Washington Post
 
“Jack Reacher has become arguably the most iconic fictional hero we have.”—Men’s Health 
 
“Compelling and moving . . . bold and mysterious.”—Associated Press
 
“This, Child’s twenty-second book in the series, has heart to spare, and it proves the franchise has plenty of gas left in its tank.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Compulsively readable.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“[A] multifaceted novel about dealing with the unthinkable . . . It’s automatic: Reacher gets off a bus, and Child lands on the New York Times bestseller list.”—Booklist
 
“The book is very smart . . . [and] suggests something that has not been visible in the series’ previous entries: a creeping sadness in Reacher’s wanderings that, set here among the vast and empty landscapes of Wyoming, resembles the peculiarly solitary loneliness of the classic American hero. This return to form is also a hint of new ground to be covered.”—Kirkus Reviews 

“Child does a stellar job this time by not following his customary formula; his usually stoic hero who rarely displays softness and compassion is hit hard emotionally by this case.”’—Library Journal (starred review)

From the Publisher

2017-09-04
A glimpse of a West Point class ring in a pawn shop window sends Jack Reacher on his latest adventure in the 22nd entry in Child's (No Middle Name, 2017, etc.) series.On his latest travel to nowhere, Reacher, the peripatetic badass/guardian angel, steps off a bus at a rest stop and, while stretching his legs, glimpses a ring belonging to a female cadet. Knowing what it takes to earn that ring, especially for the women who still have to prove themselves to the military, Reacher buys it and, with nothing more than the initials inscribed inside to guide him, sets out to return to it to his fellow West Point alum. Of course it lands him in trouble, this time with a ring of opioid dealers, but at least he has a former FBI agent-turned-detective and the sister of the ring's owner for company. It's a good idea to give Reacher company since he plays well with others when they're on his side. How he plays badly with those who aren't is also part of the fun. So are the clever Sherlock-ian deductive skills that Reacher, a former Army investigator, puts to good use. Blessedly, there are none of the grisly moments that broke faith with readers in the series' last installment (Night School, 2016). And the book is very smart about illegal drugs, understanding that the face of the present crisis is largely white and rural and that the government's attempt to crack down on drugs ignores both the very real pleasure and the often necessary pain relief they bring to users, especially vets. The book makes a rather icky sentimental misstep toward the end. It does, however, suggest something that has not been visible in the series' previous entries: a creeping sadness in Reacher's wanderings that, set here among the vast and empty landscapes of Wyoming, resembles the peculiarly solitary loneliness of the classic American hero. This return to form is also a hint of new ground to be covered.

Kirkus Reviews