cover of A Wanted Man

What the cover says: “When you’re as big and rough as Jack Reacher – and you have a badly set, freshly busted nose, patched with silver duct tape – it isn’t easy to hitch a ride. But Reacher has some unfinished business in Virginia, so he doesn’t quit. And at last he’s picked up by three strangers – two men and a woman.

But within minutes it becomes clear they’re all lying about everything – and then they run into a police roadblock on the highway. There has been an incident, and the cops are looking for the bad guys …

Will they get through because the three are innocent? Or because the three are now four? Is Reacher just a decoy?”

Firstly, I have to confess, that I bought the hardback of this book as a little treat for myself back in the Autumn, and got it signed by Lee Child at the CWA panel event in November.

Since then, it’s sat on my bookcase waiting for me to read it. I promised myself it would be my Christmas treat although, as it turns out, it’s been more of a New Year treat.

But it was totally worth the wait.

It’s a classic Reacher story. Told in Lee Child’s signature style: slick, fast and as gripping as ever.

When Reacher finds himself a pawn in a criminal getaway, and ends up a suspect in a murder, he has to decide what to do – run, or find out who did it.

In true Reacher fashion, he sets out to work out who did it and why. Half suspect, half unofficial partner to Special Agent Julia Sorenson, they work the case. It’s a real ‘why dunnit’ with plenty of twists and turns thrown in to keep the reader on their toes.

I can’t wait for the next one.