In his 24th adventure, nomadic vigilante Jack Reacher cuts a wide swath through an unnamed city’s rival gangs in his quest to help an elderly couple under threat from loan sharks.
The first half is genius; vintage Reacher, the physical embodiment of a spanner in the works, an agent of chaos for the Albanian and Ukrainian crime bosses, who misconstrue his actions for their rivals. The pacing is sharp, the transitions between characters smooth, and the violence hits hard and fast; like Reacher. But when the narrative turns, and Reacher declares war on the city’s organised crime, the novel becomes too reliant on gunplay, which is less high-octane (as I imagine it was intended), and more absolutely bonkers. The body count in Blue Moon is stratospheric; ridiculously so. At one point, bodies are literally piled in a doorway as rank and file gang members attempt to swarm Reacher. Maybe I could get past this , the sheer exuberance of Reacher’s kill count, if the shoot-em-up set pieces were a little more imaginative and extravagant; but they’re just so banal, in terms of setting and execution. Nobody writes choreographed fight scenes like Lee Child; but something is lost when he translates his specific style to shootouts.
Reacher’s mortality has floated to the surface in recent books, but in Blue Moon he’s in God Mode; a one-man killing machine, doing bad things to bad people in the worst possible way. At one point he deadpans, “Normally I kill them, kill their families, and piss on their ancestors’ graves.” Oh, Jack; don’t become a caricature of yourself. The book speeds along at an agreeable clip, but I’ve always thought Reacher works best in Sherlock Holmes mode rather than John McClane action hero. Middling for this brilliant series; but an average Reacher is better than most thrillers on the shelves.
Simon McDonald 