Books : The Visitor (A Jack Reacher Novel)

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• Subjects - Books - Thrillers
• Authors, A-Z - Crime, Thrillers & Mystery - Subjects - Books - Child, Lee
• Subjects - Books - General
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"As a rule, the Bureau and the military don't get along too well."
"Well, there's a big surprise. Who the hell do you guys gel along with."
..."You know how it is. Military hates the Bureau, the Bureau hates CIA, everybody hates everybody else...So we need a go-between."
Reacher shrugged.
"I don't know anybody like that. I've been out too long."

In this magnificent, utterly ingenious thriller, Reacher once again saves the day, proving that he is a unique hero, capable of holding his own in any situation, and "The Visitor" confirms that Lee Child is more than capable of challenging the established names currently writing in this genre.

From the Publisher:
Lee Child’s latest unputdownable thriller starring Jack Reacher features a chilling serial killer.

From the Back Cover:
Sergeant Amy Callan and Lieutenant Caroline Cook have a lot in common. High-flying army career women, both are victims of sexual harassment from their superiors; both are forced to resign from the service.

And now they're both dead.

Their unmarked bodies are discovered in their own homes, naked, in baths filled with army-issue camouflage paint. Expert FBI psychological profilers start to hunt for a serial murderer, a smart guy with a score to settle, a loner, an army man, a ruthless vigilante known to them both.

Jack Reacher, a former US military cop, is a smart guy, a loner and a drifter, as tough as they come. He knew both victims. For Agent-in-Charge Nelson Blake and his team he's the perfect match. They're sure only Reacher has the answers to their burning questions: how did these women die? And why?

About the Author:
LEE CHILD is British, but after he was made redundant from his job in television, he moved with his family from Cumbria to the United States to start a new career as a writer of American thrillers. He now divides his time between France and New York. All his novels feature the maverick Jack Reacher, and all have been international bestsellers.


Excerpted from The Visitor by Lee Child. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved:
People say that knowledge is power. The more knowledge, the more power. Suppose you knew the winning numbers for the lottery? All of them? Not guessed them, not dreamed them, but really knew them? What would you do? You would run to the store, is what. You would mark those numbers on the playslip. And you would win.

Same for the stock market. Suppose you really knew what was going to go way up? You're not talking about a hunch or a gut feeling here. You're not talking about a trend or a percentage game or a whisper or a tip. You're talking about knowledge. Real, hard knowledge. Suppose you had it? What would you do? You would call your broker, is what. You would buy. Then later you'd sell, and you'd be rich.

Same for basketball, same for the horses, whatever, anything. Football, hockey, next year's World Series, any kind of sports at all, if you could predict the future, you'd be home and dry. No question. Same for the Oscars, same for the Nobel Prize, same for the first snowfall of winter. Same for anything.

Same for killing people.

Suppose you wanted to kill people. You would need to know ahead of time how to do it. That part is not too difficult. There are many ways. Some of them are better than others. Most of them have drawbacks. So you use what knowledge you've got, and you invent a new way. You think, and you think, and you think, and you come up with the perfect method.

You pay a lot of attention to the set-up. Because the perfect method is not an easy method, and careful preparation is very important. But that stuff is meat and drink to you. You have no problem with careful preparation. No problem at all. How could you, with your intelligence? After all your training?

You know the big problems will come afterward. How do you make sure you get away with it? You use your knowledge, is how. You know more than most people about how the cops work. You've seen them on duty, many times, sometimes close up. You know what they look for. So you don't leave anything for them to find. You go through it all in your head, very precisely and very exactly and very carefully. Just as carefully as you would mark the lottery slip you knew for sure was going to win you a fortune.

People say that knowledge is power. The more knowledge, the more power.

Which makes you just about the most powerful person on earth. When it comes to killing people. And then getting away with it.

Life is full of decisions and judgements and guesses, and it gets to the point where you're so accustomed to making them you keep right on making them even when you don't strictly need to. You get into a what if thing, and you start speculating about what you would do if some problem was yours instead of somebody else's. It gets to be a habit. It was a habit Jack Reacher had in spades. Which was why he was sitting alone at a restaurant table and gazing at the backs of two guys twenty feet away and wondering if it would be enough just to warn them off or if he would have to go the extra mile and break their arms.

It was a question of dynamics. From the start the dynamics of the city meant that a brand new Italian place in Tribeca like the one Reacher was in was going to stay pretty empty until the food guy from the New York Times wrote it up or an Observer columnist spotted some celebrity in there two nights in a row. But neither thing had happened yet and the place was still uncrowded, which made it the perfect choice for a lonely guy looking to eat dinner near his girlfriend's apartment while she worked late at the office. The dynamics of the city. They made it inevitable Reacher would be in there. They made it inevitable the two guys he was watching would be in there, too. Because the dynamics of the city meant any bright new commercial venture would sooner or later get a visit on behalf of somebody wanting a steady three hundred bucks a week in exchange for not sending his boys in to smash it up with baseball bats and axe handles.

The two guys Reacher was watching were standing close in to the bar, talking quietly to the owner. The bar was a token affair built across the corner of the room. It made a neat sharp triangle about seven or eight feet on a side. It was not really a bar in the sense that anybody was ever going to sit there and drink anything. It was just a focal point. It was somewhere to keep the liquor bottles. They were crowded three deep on glass shelves in front of sandblasted mirrors. The register and the credit-card machine were on the bottom shelf. The owner was a small nervous guy and he had backed away into the point of the triangle and was standing with his backside jammed against the cash drawer. His arms were folded tight across his chest, defensively. Reacher could see his eyes. They were showing something halfway between disbelief and panic and they were darting all around the room.

Average Rating:

Rating: - Great page turner.
This is the first Lee Child book I've read, and it won't be the last.

The plot is well-structured and well-paced, and the characters are likeable, believable and well-described. The end twist is quite well-done, and less predictable than other reviewers have made out (it may be more obvious for regular Child readers).

That said, this book is not without its faults. I found it quite difficult to get into at the start, and the female agent love interest is not particularly believable, nor is it neccessary (when are they I ask myself). It ends a little too quickly for me aswell.

That said, these are minor points really, the central story is very well-done. This is a definite page-turner, and keeps you coming ... Read More:

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Rating: - Love Reacher - too predictable
First of all I would like to say I love the Jack Reacher series. In this book especially I love his pure arrogance, he doesn't care whether he helps the FBI or not (although we all know he does really), we also get an insight into his inner struggle of whether he wants to be a roamer (makes him sound like a zombie!) or to be anchored down. The storyline in this book is actually really intriguing and the dialogue is as fast and snappy as ever, you love knowing that Reacher is always one step ahead. So why the 3 stars? From around the 150 pages mark, I knew then ending - it was just so obvious and couldn't really be anything else. Whilst I usually have a certain satisfaction when I solve the mystery of a book (not very often) - I was praying that ... Read More:

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Rating: - Good, but
Pacy, lots of action, keeps you turning the pages, but...
The answer is obvious about half-way through and the misdirections are a little clumsy.
The murderer's method takes a lot of suspended disbelief; it reminded me of a Wilkie Collins device.
There are too many instances where Reacher knows but the reader doesn't. It stops you feeling as though you are on the same journey as him. (He also starts coming across as a little smug.)
Lee Child is something of a master, but this is not his masterpiece.

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Rating: - Possibly the best Reacher novel
My husband and I are hooked on the Jack Reacher novels (as we are Michael Connelly's Bosch novels). I could not put this particular one down.I was gripped from the first to the last page. I have to admit that this one completly fooled me - with a completly unexpected ending - I won't say anymore as it could spoil it for you!

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Rating: - I think the best plot of the series ... so far
I've read most but not all of the Jack Reacher series. I think The Vistor has the best detective plot. It kept me guessing throughout the book and then when the conclusion came - it made perfect sense. Sometimes this doesn't happen in the books - the plots are always good but sometimes they are obvious enough to work out or sometimes frankly bizarre. This one is right on the money and I recommend it without reservation.