“Past Tense” by Lee Child – Book Review.

Jack Reacher finds himself in Maine. He has a yen to go to San Diego, and the sunshine, even though it is a navy town, and that is a heck of a long way off, and the sooner he starts the journey the better.

But he doesn’t get that far. In New England woodland he sees a sign for a small country town where his father grew up. Jack hasn’t been there before and thinks it might be fun to stop off and see where pop grew up. Hell, there might even be some long forgotten distant relations there to look up.

Meanwhile up in Canada a young couple are setting off on their own long drive to New York, and attempting it in an old unreliable car, and that is never a bright idea. Hence, the two main threads to the book, and right from the off the reader knows that the two distinct tales are going to merge into one. It’s just a matter of where and when and how.

It soon becomes apparent to the reader that there is evil and danger out there – (when isn’t there in a Jack Reacher book?) But it’s quite a long time coming, as the reader is teased with what is about to come. Some people say they guessed it all along. I didn’t, and that made for a page-turning tale that kept me up late and interested pretty much right to the very end.

As I seem to always write with Reacher books these days, this isn’t as good as some of the earlier ventures, but it is certainly better than a lot of recent ones, and I really enjoyed it, and enough to keep me buying the next one too, which I guess is what Mister Child is really after.

If you like Jack Reacher then you will probably like this one too. If you have never tried a JR book before then start off with the first one, “Killing Floor” and work your way through. I reckon you will be glad that you did.

A decent thriller for me - 4 stars ****