Jack Reacher, Book 26
From the publisher:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Jack Reacher is back in a brand-new page-turning thriller from acclaimed #1 bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child.
Digging graves had not been part of my plans when I woke up that morning.
Reacher goes where he wants, when he wants. That morning he was heading west, walking under the merciless desert sun—until he comes upon a curious scene. A Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. A woman is slumped over the wheel.
Dead? No, nothing is what it seems.
The woman is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent trying to find her twin brother, who might be mixed up with some dangerous people. Most of them would rather die than betray their terrifying leader, who has burrowed his influence deep into the nearby border town, a backwater that has seen better days. The mysterious Dendoncker rules from the shadows, out of sight and under the radar, keeping his dealings in the dark.
He would know the fate of Fenton’s brother.
Reacher is good at finding people who don’t want to be found, so he offers to help, despite feeling that Fenton is keeping secrets of her own. But a life hangs in the balance. Maybe more than one. But to bring Dendoncker down will be the riskiest job of Reacher’s life. Failure is not an option, because in this kind of game, the loser is always better off dead.
Twenty six books in a series is remarkable, but as Lee Child has handed off the writing of these books to his brother, Andrew Child, the series has taken a sharp turn for the worse. This was one of my favorite series. When I would get the review copy, I would literally put down whatever else I was reading and give the latest Reacher my undivided attention. I always read these books in one night, no matter how late I had to stay up to do it. Lee had threatened to kill off Reacher on numerous occasions over the past few years. I guess he grew tired of writing them. But the hysteria around the possibility of killing Reacher made him reconsider, I guess. Next thing I know his brother Andrew is writing the books.
Andrew started with the previous book, The Sentinel, and it was pretty good. Not as good as Lee’s books, but they weren’t all perfect either. I figured he was getting his sea legs and the next book would be great. I was wrong.
It took me about two weeks to finish this book. I was often tempted to just put it down and forget about it. I read on a Kindle, and every time I looked to see how far along I was, it was never nearly as far as I thought I should be. I thought I was halfway through at the 20% mark, so not good, and it continued like that. I thought surely it must be ending soon, and I was at 55%, and so on. I kept putting it down to read something else, something better, anything else – also not good. But I persevered and eventually finished.
This book has a sort of shocking beginning, except you know there would be no book at all if it were true. It was downhill from there. Reacher is here in all his fighting glory, chasing bad guys and beating the hell out of them in much the same way he has in every previous book. Even the guy that is way bigger than he is.
The woman this time is a former FBI agent looking for her twin brother. Reacher offers to help, of course, and there are the usual underground tunnels and deserted buildings for all the bad guys to hide out in. Reacher doesn’t have any sex in this book, and very few laughs can be found. And apparently, he has finally learned how cell phones work.
The writing again seems like a Lee Child imitation, with every sentence in the book short and choppy. It is written in the first person so that was new (I think? I don’t remember if all of them skipped that.) Weirdly, Reacher’s connections are eager to help and he, of course, saves the day. The book just seemed very repetitive and redundant. Knowing me, I will read the next Reacher book in hopes of it being better, but I’ll tell you this: if I dislike it as much as this one, I will not finish it (if I remember – it is a year off!)
So if you are a Reacher fan, go for it. Publisher’s Weekly gave it a starred review, but I’m more in line with the Library Journal review, other than the last line:
The writing is more seamless than in the Child brothers’ previous collaboration, but the action is often perfunctorily described, and the supporting cast is thinly written. There’s less humor than in previous entries, though Reacher’s notorious Luddism is played for a few laughs. Fans of the series will enjoy.
Reviewed by Liz French, Library Journal , Oct 02, 2021
11/2021 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
BETTER OFF DEAD by Lee Child & Andrew Child. Delacorte Press (October 26, 2021). ISBN: 978-1984818508. 336 pages.
Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™ 
I am a Jack Reacher fan myself. But I think I will stick with his old books –before his brother’s stepped in. Still have some older ones to read.