As with many people I find that at weekends my nightshifts suffer from a lack of things to do, so it is recommended (by the manager no less) that staff take books or dvd's to fill the time, on Saturday night it was this that I took with me.

It was borrowed from a library at the office in which my Dad works for him to take on holiday of course this meant that I completed it and told him all about it in the car at 4am this morning while I taxied him to the airport.

As this is a Lee Child book it of course features his hero Jack Reacher the former US Military Policeman who now lives a nomadic life owning nothing but the clothes he wears and his toothbrush, along with the now requisite photo ID.

But on this occasion when he goes to check his bank balance there is an extra $1030, why? The amount is 1030 the old code for 'Help' back when he was in the army, so he deduces that this is one of his old team calling for assistance, but which one, a call to his bank reveals where the deposit came from so he heads out to LA to find her and why she needs help.

The plot at times is quite convoluted but it does tie together, the ending doesnt seem rushed and hits with the same impact as the closing scenes as the previous books have done, but this somehow seems more real, whether this is due to Reacher's obvious affection and ties to the team he is working with/rescuing which is absent in other books or simply that the style is slightly different I couldnt say but I enjoyed it either way.

So far as the other members of Reahcers team having had such different lives after the Army it is also realistic to believe that one or more have effectively dropped out of society, others have had great success while others occupy the middle ground and d oenough to get by comfortably.

As with all Lee Child books it is action packed but also contains a healthy dose of thinking as the characters investigate the crime/mystery. But it is also somewhat unbelieveable in its premise that this man could choose to live so nomadically, and own literally nothing except what he can carry. Also that he can do so many of the things he does without having been locked up yet, but these are all things that can be said of any of the books featuring Reacher.

After the previous book this one feels better, its characters are better written and do seem like they could be real people, though some of the more peripheral characters are too two dimensional to seem realistic but as they are peripheral this doesnt impact on my enjoyment of the book too greatly.

The length of this is about right at 410 pages long in the hardback copy, as this was borrowed from a library it hasnt cost me anything but a typical hardback book will cost from around £9 depending where it is bought from (obviously buying online it will incurr higher postage charges). If I'm being honest I probably wont be buying this when it is released in paper back straight away but probably will pick up a copy if I see it in a charity shop simply to keep the bookshelf complete as I will reread the books but not just yet. The media quotes on the back suggest that this is Child's best book yet which while I dont entirely agree it is pretty reasonable to assume that the writing style has matured and involving Reachers old collegues did add a new dimension to the action.