Jack Reacher Is In Too Deep in "In Too Deep"

 

Jack Reacher goes through a standard mystery in “In Too Deep”. In fact, one can say, once again, Jack Reacher is in too deep. Reacher wakes up chained to a makeshift bed, not knowing how he got there. It’s a standard start to a Jack Reacher novel. Reacher is always stuck somewhere, sometimes knowing how he got there and sometimes not. This time, a guy named Vidic is standing there, and tells him to stay there, and that he’ll help. Right away Reacher doesn’t trust him. Vidic has a small group of sketchy people with him, in an abandoned house, who seem to have millions of dollars worth of random antiques. Of course, this all seems fishy to Jack Reacher. Add into the fact that the FBI seems to be onto him, and an agent seems to want to want revenge on one of the members of Vidic’s crew for killing her father. Of course, this is a female agent, and she automatically takes an attraction to Reacher. Pretty standard stuff for a Reacher novel. Reacher decides to help her out, while pretending to be also on this sketchy crew’s side to crack their operation wide open.

The novel is pretty normal for a Reacher novel, while in usual Lee Child style, a step above the usual writing of a thriller novel proses wise. There’s a lot of description, if a bit too much showing instead of telling. However, Lee Child (or in this case, his brother, Andrew Child who has taken over the series), seems to write his usual descriptive and wordy writing, that moves the story along but doesn’t skim on the details. Reacher chapters are proper length, unlike the two-page chapters of James Patterson, and aren’t bogged down by tons of dialogue, like the later novels of Robert B. Parker.

However, Reacher is still Reacher, even with a new author. He still has creative ways to set up bad guys, and play both sides, and get both sides to trust him until the bad side doesn’t anymore. Ever since I started watching the Jack Reacher TV series on Amazon, the voice of Reacher on the page sounds like Alan Ritcher, the actor who plays him. That straight to the point voice.

The story takes an international crisis turns as Reacher puts together the pieces, which include a report that could pose danger to the United States as a whole. These turn out to not be the small-time crooks they appear to be at the beginning of the novel. It’s a solid Reacher thriller, and a page turning mystery. Sometimes the characters put together the pieces to the reader and sometimes the reader turns to put it together with the character. Jack Reacher is so good at putting together the pieces that the reader tends to follow Reacher as he puts it all together. This isn’t the best Jack Reacher novel ever, but it’s a solid read. I look forward to the next adventure.