One Shot

One Shot
by Lee Child
Recommended Ages: 15+

Fourteen years ago, a U.S. Army sniper named James Barr went a little crazy and killed four people in cold blood on a street in Kuwait City. The victims turned out, by sheer luck, to have been bad guys, and the whole incident was swept under the rug. But Jack Reacher, then a captain in the Military Police, swore to Barr that if he didn't keep his nose clean, Reacher would track him down and bury him.

So when the news breaks that a sniper just opened fire on a crowd in a small Indiana city and all the evidence points to James Barr, Reacher hops on a bus with the clear intent to keep his promise. Only something is just a bit off. Barr actually asked for him – practically the only words he spoke since being arrested. He hasn't confirmed or denied anything, but the evidence is overwhelming. And that's before he gets beaten within an inch of his life in the town jail and wakes up with amnesia reaching back to the day of the shooting and beyond. Normally, Reacher wouldn't mind seeing a man like Barr hang for such a crime. But until days before the shooting – the last Barr can remember – he really seemed to have reformed, and the thought of shooting a bunch of innocent people hadn't entered his mind. And the way the shooting went down, it's as if Barr was purposely laying a trail of evidence to ensure that he'd get caught.

Most suspicious of all, almost as soon as Reacher arrives, shady characters start following him and setting up situations to mess with him, apparently thinking (ha, ha) that he'll get scared off and leave town. This only makes him think there must be more going on than the obvious. That maybe James Barr didn't act alone. That maybe he was coerced or manipulated somehow – like by a threat to his sister, the only person he cares about. That maybe someone actually helped arrange the clues that point to Barr. Or maybe, that out of the six shots the sniper fired, there was one shot that really mattered.

Contrary to what the bad guys suppose, messing with Reacher doesn't inspire him to back off. Killing an innocent person and trying to frame him for it just ticks him off and ensures that, at the very least, he'll try to bury them along with Barr. As he goes after the puppet master behind the killings, Reacher and a small group of confederates search for a connection between one of the victims and anyone with a motive to kill them and make it look like a random act, and the power and viciousness to orchestrate such a deadly ruse. Finding them isn't really all that hard. But the part that will keep the suspense simmering until the last few pages is how Reacher and Co. will get to them without being gotten first, when the bad guys' lair is surrounded by a perfect killing ground and they have an inside guy in local law enforcement.

This is the ninth of 24 Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child, not counting ones lately ghost-written by his brother Andrew Child (a.k.a. Andrew Grant). It's a series you can read out of canon/publication order, luckily, because I'm nowhere close to reading the books in the correct sequence. But yeah, you know Reacher's going to win. That doesn't take away from the tension, the thrills, and the mystery that starts with you knowing exactly whodunit and then proceeds to surprise you anyway. And if you've read even as few of these books as I have (this is the 11th for me) you'll expect there to be a lot of extreme violence in this contest of wills, between a bad guy with a well-honed talent for survival and a good guy with an knack for death and destruction. And talk about sending a guy to do the impossible? It's Reacher with a borrowed cell phone and a combat knife against a half-dozen hardened killers with guns and surveillance equipment, all aimed at a landscape with nowhere to hide. Despite the odds, he isn't the one you'll be worried for. Being on the wrong side of Reacher isn't a safe or healthy way to live. But as this book shows once again, having him between you and the enemy can give you, like, one shot.