Book Review: In Too Deep

Spoilers!

What’s great about Jack Reacher is that he can start a book, like 2024’s In Too Deep, handcuffed by all of his limbs to a chair, one of those limbs (his right wrist) be broken, and have a concussion, and you can be assured he’ll still remain confident and calm about the immediate outcome. Even after that, with the blinking Chekhov’s “gun” of his hurt wrist and tender head (his two favorite weapons, as he loves his headbutt!), no villain is able to use it to their advantage. I love Reacher and the shenanigans he gets into, no matter how virtually impenetrable and unflappable he remains. This 29th Reacher novel was a step-up from its predecessor, with more action and a lengthier, twisting story.

Reacher is a drifter carrying only his ATM card, passport, and collapsible toothbrush, the antithesis of James Bond. He quite literally drifts from one part of the United States to the next typically without any strong rhyme or reason, but always running into trouble he inevitability must help solve. Despite his drifter status, he does have external contacts and someone who he ends up partnering with (local law enforcement or some such person, usually a woman he hooks up with) to assist him. Still, Reacher gets by through those two aforementioned traits (impenetrable and unflappable), as well as being highly cerebral and intelligent, one of my favorite aspects of the Reacher character. He’s not just a brute! Because of his brain, Reacher is always one step ahead of his adversaries (and the people he is working with, too). All that to say, if a story is told in 2024, as this one is, Reacher is a bit out of his depth with the technology of the day. That makes for some fun moments with his police detective partner in this one, Knight, whose phone he needs to keep borrowing and her guidance on technology issues otherwise. She’s involved because a brute, Kane, killed her security guard father. Kane is involved with a group who steals art and profits from it. One of those, Gibson, is ostensibly an undercover FBI agent. The reason the book started with Reacher in the dire situation he was in is because he was in a car crash with Gibson that resulted in Gibson’s death and Reacher’s injuries. Because of his concussion, Reacher doesn’t quite remember what occurred, though.

Vidic is the one who pulled Reacher from the vehicle and helped his “boss,” Fletcher, with tying Reacher up to a chair. But as I alluded to, Reacher was able to escape from his predicament and kick Fletcher’s ass. Vidic then tries to play it like he’s going to help Reacher get revenge on Fletcher and Kane and “cut the stranger” into the $2 million that’s in Fletcher’s safe. Kane is depicted as of similar height to Reacher, but about 50 pounds heavier. Mostly, he’s depicted, though, as sexual predator and an idiot. Turns out, he was the smartest one of the bunch! He figured out, as Reacher also did, that Gibson wasn’t an FBI agent and that’s only what Vidic, the real FBI agent, wanted the FBI and the others to think. Vidic, as the title of the book suggests, got “in too deep” and became bad for real. He was going to abscond with millions of dollars. Instead, Kane shoots him in the head, which shocked me. He also kills Paris, the woman of their group.

The other thread here was that Vidic and Paris were going to kill Fletcher and Kane (or let the “stranger” in Reacher do it) and change their game to blackmail and then, more ominously, somehow through Vidic’s connections, selling a report that detailed the failings of the U.S. nuclear arsenal to the highest bidder. That upped the stakes for Reacher, Knight, and the FBI. In trying to track down Kane, and more importantly, the thumb drive that contained the report, the story takes Reacher to St. Louis, Florida, and even the Bahamas. Usually when Reacher is in a place “solving a problem,” as it were, he stays there, so, this was different. I’m still not sure how Reacher was able to get through TSA with his expired passport. Nonetheless, the Bahamas is where the story climaxes, with Reacher infiltrating Kane’s hideout house and easily dispatching four of Kane’s henchman and then Kane himself (although, Kane did get the initial jump on Reacher, which was different!).

Overall, I’m always going to devour a Reacher book because I like being with Reacher, whether it’s him confidently ready to kick someone’s ass or within his head as he deduces what the heck is going on. Yes, not everything always lines up for me (mostly here, it was absurd Kane was able to escape the first time, given he was bound up by Reacher and Knight, and supposedly the FBI was minutes away), but I can overlook that for the escapist fun. Here’s to the 30th Reacher book this year!