“Bite me!” isn’t exactly the response I would use when an angry 6 feet 5 inch, 250-pound storms into my room, but I’m also not the dumb villain in Lee Child and Andrew Child’s 27th Jack Reacher novel, 2022’s No Plan B. Just like the prior book in the series, it’s funny the little ways Child tries to be self-referential about the fact that Jack Reacher, minimalist James Bond, is navigating a world awash in technology, like GPS technology on our phones and … phones. I’m surprised they’re still going with the hitchhiking gimmick, given that surely has gone the way of the payphone (supposedly it still happens!)? But I love it because it’s Jack Reacher, and Jack Reacher at this point has become minimalist Superman, and I love Superman.
It used to be in these books that some of the big bads Reacher faces off with would get some licks in on Reacher. In fact, one guy even shot Reacher at near point-blank range, but his massive 50-inch chest stopped the bullet. In this book and the previous Reacher book, however, none of the villains — armed with guns and/or knives, often with multiple villains confronting Reacher at the same time, and in the past two books, two different villains described as bigger and tougher than Reacher — have landed a blow on Reacher. Not even a punch! Reacher is not only better at fighting than them, but he outwits them, too. He’s also not one of those “action heroes” who monologues, although he does like his Spider-Man-like taunting (now I’m mixing comic book character references), but that he has the absolute confidence that he is about to win the fight.
In “No Plan B,” a private prison in Mississippi is essentially “harvesting” (a dirty word!) organs from prisoners for profit, but using PR strategies to present themselves as a compassionate, new kind of prison helping prisoners to get early releases. When a few of its employees get wise to the discrepancies, the prison kills them and makes it look like accidents. Well, one of those “accidents” happened to occur in Colorado in front of Reacher. He can’t let it go. He can never let it go. So starts a fight, literally, to uncover the truth, and his journey to Mississippi and the prison to finish off all the bad guys along the way. What was particularly fun about this one is that the top level bad guys kept sending out their henchman along Reacher’s route to Mississippi to stop him and it just didn’t matter. He kept thwarting them, and then it was almost dark comedy every time the top levels guys would discuss it, and be like, “What happened to them? Reacher!” And even when they think they’ve outwitted him, naturally, it’s Reacher who was three steps ahead of them all along.
My only minor criticism of the book (aside from poking fun at that bad dialogue at the start of the review) is that we spent considerable time with Jed Starmer, a 16-year-old foster kid, who is also traveling to Mississippi to meet his dad he believes is being released (in a PR stunt) by the prison. He has his money stolen on the Greyhound, he has no food or water, he has the police after him, and eventually finds himself in the thick of things with the bad guys Reacher is also after, and after all of that, we never actually get the reunion scene with the dad! Instead, it’s an aside at the end when Child wraps up the book that they’ll go figure things out together. Boo.
Nonetheless, as usual, this was an easy, fun read through the mind and physicality of Reacher. Probably the most fun scene was when the big villain, who again, is depicted as bigger and badder than Reacher, comes with a few guys to a hotel to get Reacher. Instead, Reacher sneaks out of his room into an adjoining room to attack a couple of them, and then comes back around to get the big guy. It’s good, funny stuff. I like them leaning into the humor of Reacher.
As I mentioned with the prior installment in the series, if you are skeptical of Andrew Child taking on the series from his brother, Lee Child, don’t fret. Reacher is still Reacher, and maybe even more Reacher-y than he was through some of Lee’s handling (again, given how little-to-no punishment he takes now). The Reacher character is what we want, and the Reacher character is what we’re still getting.
Milam's Musings 
One thought