The Midnight Line by Lee Child is book twenty-two in the Jack Reacher series. The book was released on November 7, 2017 in the US. I received a review copy from Random House Publishing group via Netgalley. Now lets get on to my thoughts! The Midnight Line is what I consider a return to true Reacher form. The nomadic problem solver is back and trouble is quick to find him. The spark that starts the journey is a bit far fetched or a bit of too much of a stretch for me. The upper Midwest feel and small town feel reminds me a lot of Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series. Anyone who is a long time reader of this blog, will be able to back me up on the fact that for me that was the exact thing I want. There was even a sheriff who shared a name with a Longmire series character. The novel even had a strong resemblance to John D Macdonald's Travis McGee series. The action is super fast paced and presented brilliantly in cinematic way. If you want a good popcorn style action book The Midnight Line is it a full five star recommendation!

Just in time for Veteran's Day, another Jack Reacher book has been released, which examines what happens to wounded servicemen and women when they come home.

After Michelle Chang leaves Reacher, he climbs on yet another bus and heads north. At a rest break, he spots a West Point ring in a pawn shop and is moved to find out more about the owner. Reacher runs into resistance right away but learns enough to begin following a trail that leads him to South Dakota, then Wyoming, where he teams up with a private investigator and his client. As it turns out,they are both looking for the same woman--the client's twin sister, Serena Rose Sanderson.

The twenty-second book in the series is one of the best--filled with the series' brand of action and adventure, of course; yet there are moments of humor, poignancy and deep humanity as well. Makes for some exciting and compulsive reading!

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to read an arc of this exciting new book!

Another great Jack Reacher story. He always goes on a great adventure to rescue someone. This story explores the opioid crisis that is currently a problem in America.

Loved the plot that was filled with action and a bit of humor.
The development of the story was very slow for my taste, with a lot of action sequences that gave emphasis on the tactical part of a fight and strategy.
The main character reflects all the good qualities of a person that serves their country and that is honor bound to any of his fellow soldiers.

You can't go wrong with a Lee Child/Jack Reacher story. This was was no exception. We got to see a softer side of Reacher in this installment. He finds a women's West Point class ring in a pawn shop and decides to find the owner, running into bad guys along the way, as only Jack Reacher can.

This is the first Jack Reacher book that I've had a hard time getting into. It failed to hold my attention. Numerous times I found my mind wandering while reading this book. I hope that the next one is better.

I've been a fan of this series since the first book came out ([book:Killing Floor|78129]) way back in 1997. Keeping a series going through 20 years and 22 books is a feat all on its own. Not many authors could pull that off. With The Midnight Line, I'm taken back to the feel of those early books and reminded why I fell in love with Jack Reacher.

The best Jack Reacher books follow a certain formula. This story follows that formula, as Reacher sets out steadfast and determined on a quest to solve a mystery he deems worthy of his attention. Reacher is like a dog with a bone; once he gets a taste for something, he won't stop until he's finished. While this formula sets up certain expectations for readers, the twists are always surprising.

This is an entertaining mystery, but the story also provides some thought-provoking content. Child never preaches at us. These aspects are worked seamlessly into the content.

Child references Reacher's size more than usual throughout this story, and I couldn't help but wonder if this was an attempt to rectify the backlash about Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher in the movies. Cruise did a great job with the part, but he is not even close to the physical size of the character, which upset some readers. I thought the constant emphasis on Reacher's size, particularly with the way people called him certain names, was a little much, but I figured it was Child's way or reestablishing the basics.

Overall, this is an entertaining and thoughtful mystery, with a lead character that kicks butt throughout.

*I was provided with an advance ebook copy by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*

The character of Reacher is subtly changing - he is occasionally feeling lonely now. He's becoming more like a real person, not just an action hero. Very timely plot device - the opioid crisis, with good explanations about why the crisis is so difficult to solve

Reacher is doing nothing different. He is taking a walk during a break on his long bus ride when he notices a West Point class ring from 2005 sitting in a pawn shop window. Although this is several years after his time there, he feels the need to look into the reason a fellow officer would have to give it up (or lose it). He doesn’t get back on the bus and decides to try and discover why this ring is no longer with its owner. Can he find the woman and return her ring? What secrets will he uncover in these small Midwestern towns?

The Midnight Line is the twenty-second book in the Jack Reacher series. All of these books are good, but this book is great. It is hard to believe that Child can take a character with so much history and create a unique story that keeps the reader turning the pages. I won’t say this is my favorite Jack Reacher novel (since I’ve been reading them over many years), but I can honestly say it is in my top five. A high adventure that will keep readers engaged until the very end.

Reacher and Chang have gone their separate ways and he ends up in a small Wisconsin town. While walking around the town he glances into the window of a pawn shop and notices a class ring. This is not any class ring but a West Point class ring. Even though the year is many years after he graduated, he is now wondering how and why this ring is in the pawn shop. His quest has begun and he buys the ring. This leads him to a run in with a group of bikers, but he gets information that leads him to Minneapolis, where he has run-ins with wanna be muscle for a local criminal. He then moves on to Wyoming and it is there that when meeting up with a PI that the pieces are starting to come together and what you have is something very big going on. He of course wants to shut it down. He also finds the person the rings belongs to a vet a female officer, who was wounded in Afghanistan. Reacher still at times during this story is thinking about Chang from the last book which I thought was a nice touch. Overall a very good book.

This book finds Reacher still living his nomadic existence and he stumbles across a West Point class ring in a pawn shop in Wisconsin which leads him on a cross country odyssey to reunite the ring with its owner. Reacher wants to satisfy his curiosity about what caused the owner to give up the ring. His quest leads him into the dark underbelly of the opiod epidemic that has destroyed so many communities.

This is another solid entry in a very popular franchise. My minor quibble was that I was thrown out of the story just a little bit when at two different times adult American characters had to explain what Bigfoot is to other adult characters which to me seems like it is common knowledge.

Jack Reacher has gotten older and more thoughtful but that hasn't stopped his skills in this action-packed book. I found this book to be more complex, in a good way, than previous Reacher novels dealing with serious contemporary issues including the opiod epidemic as well as the aftermath after service in wartime and our treatment of veterans. I always love Reacher novels.

Excellent follow up to the Reacher series. It was a thrilling read and kept up to my expectations to what I have come to enjoy about the series.

In this latest installation of the Reacher series, Lee Child goes back to the formula that has made this series one of my favorites. Some of the more recent books have strayed from the simple plan that has made the Reacher series so endearing. It was nice to have the simple plots, Jack's simple thought processes and logic explained, and the logical proceeding of the story.

It was a like sitting down and getting caught up with an old friend. My interest had wained with a couple of the previous novels but this was exactly what I was hoping it would be.

I know Jack Reacher has feelings, but to be sentimental? Not at all what I expected. He notices a West PoInt ring in a pawn shop window, a small ring, obviously for a woman's hand. He wonders who would give up such a ring as it is a hard one to earn. In his search for the owner, he teams up with a private investigator also searching for the ring's owner as she has had no contact with her family for several years. The owner of the ring has served several tours in Iraq and was badly injured on the final one. I thought this book is a softer more gentle read than usual, but is serves to highlight the turmoil many of +our discharged veterans go through.. Another fantastic book from Lee Child.

This is not your typical Jack Reacher book. In this one, he is more subdued and more of an investigator rather than a fighter. He feels the need to reunite a found West Point class ring to its rightful owner, and that is his adventure the entire book. He is saddled with a PI and a lady on the hunt for her sister, and Reacher is more along for the ride rather than the hunter he usually is. I enjoyed it, it is a different take on Reacher than usual, but it satisfied in the end. Go read it already!

Published by Random House/Delacorte Press on Nov. 7, 2017

The Midnight Line is the best Reacher novel I’ve read in quite some time. Lee Child always stands out in the crowd of “tough guy” fiction authors, but The Midnight Line stands out because the “tough guy” aspect of the story is underplayed. Instead, Child focuses the story on a serious real-world issue: soldiers who suffer serious injuries in the line of duty, who become addicted to powerful pain medications, and who are then all but abandoned by the government that gave them their problem. Lee illustrates that issue by focusing on one woman’s struggle to make it through each day, which amounts to a struggle to find the opioids she needs to maintain a life she can handle.

Jack Reacher stumbles upon a ring in a pawn shop that was once owned by a female West Point graduate. The pawned ring suggests that the woman encountered some sort of trouble, so Reacher, being Reacher, decides to find her. His first step involves fighting a motorcycle gang. He is, after all, a tough guy, and it is a rule of tough guy novels that tough guy heroes must establish their tough guy credentials at the beginning of every story. Authors of lesser novels do nothing else, but the best writers search for a more compelling storyline than “tough guys are really tough.” Child usually comes through in that regard, although some of his books do it more successfully than others.

Reacher’s next step takes him to Rapid City and to a fellow named Shapiro who is suspected of all sorts of criminal activities by the local police. A private detective from Chicago who specializes in finding missing persons is also keeping an eye on Shapiro. It isn't hard to figure out which missing person the detective is trying to find. Eventually Reacher teams up with the private detective and the missing woman’s sister to look for the woman who belongs to the ring.

Reacher novels are compulsively readable, and this one is no exception. The pace is steady, calm and assured, exactly what a reader should expect from a confident writer. There is action from time to time, but after the fight with the motorcycle gang, this is a novel of anticipation more than action. I like that. With so many mindless tough guy novels on the market, a tough guy who doesn’t feel a constant need to prove his superiority to other tough guys is a welcome change.

The Midnight Line is a compassionate novel. The story is a little sad because for many people, life gets to be a little sad. Life goes where life takes us, and that isn’t always where we want our lives to go, but sad or not, life goes on until it stops. Reacher accepts that, and Child wants the reader to accept it, without all the hokey “make your own destiny” bromides that are so popular in novels and self-help books. When life doesn’t go well, you cope, and if you’re lucky, you cope without being judged and other people still respect your dignity and give you the decent treatment that should come with being human. We could use more of that sort of understanding.

The novel’s only flaw is that a police detective and her computer guy engage in some police work that struck me as fanciful. The method by which they figured out the phone number of a telephone sold by a convenience store and the phone company’s willingness to give the police a voicemail left on that number without a subpoena or warrant both struck me as implausible. But those are minor complaints about a novel that isn’t about police work so much as it is about a person dealing with a problem that she has in common with thousands of others. Child encourages the reader to understand her, and to understand and feel compassion for people like her (not just veterans). Kudos to Child for writing a tough guy novel that displays so much compassion and sensitivity — values that are in short supply, not just in tough guy novels, but in life.

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Thank you NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the E-ARC of The Midnight Line by Lee Child. This is the latest installment in the Jack Reacher series. While I have read all but two books in the series, this is only my second review I have written for it. Unfortunately, while it's better than the other one it's not a rave review.
I really wanted to like this one. However, the first 25-33% of it I kept asking myself why I keep looking forward to the next Reacher novel. The beginning is tedious, drawn out and predictable. Some of the scenes could be taken from some of the more recent books almost word for word and put into this one no problem. Without giving any spoilers: Reacher sets foot in a new town, finds something that piques his interest, starts the process of finding out the story and/or setting things right, comes across a group of people who won't cooperate so he gives them the option to stand down and walk away or they will be sorry (which of course they opt to stay and fight, so Reacher explains in detail how he will take them down right before he does), then gets the information he originally asked for and sets off on his quest.
That said, the story is well worth the read. If you can make it through until he reaches Wyoming, you won't want to put this book down. There are times you might think you know what is going to happen next, but there's enough of a twist that you realize you weren't quite right...and that just fuels the desire to keep reading non-stop.
I admit, I started this review before I was completely done reading this book, and while this might still sound harsh, it's definitely nothing compared to what I originally wrote. I am still wondering if Reacher is beginning to show his age and just isn't up to the kind of action that we saw in the first dozen or so books in the series, but now that I've finished the book, I can honestly say the last 2/3 redeemed this one. Not 100%-I still have a lot of issues with the beginning, but it's enough to change my original rating from 3 stars (rounded up from 2.5) to a solid 4 stars. However, I'm already hoping in the next read, we will find Reacher in a "guns blazing, knock down drag out almost impossible to make it through" adventure that leaves us questioning how even Jack Reacher made it out alive and in one piece.

Jack Reacher is traveling through the Midwest when he comes across a West Point ring displayed in a pawnshop. Intrigued, he wants to know more about the person who pawned it. The ring is small, most likely owned by a woman. Reacher, a West Point graduate himself, knows what it takes to earn a ring in that environment. For a woman the path to graduation must have been even harder. So what make this woman surrender a ring that meant a great deal to her? Jack has to know what made her do it and if she is all right. Traveling with toothbrush, Jack sets off towards Wyoming following clues that lead to bikers, drug dealers, low life criminals, cowboys, feds, detectives and a determined woman. As the setting gets more bleak and rural, these characters pick up the action.

This is a Jack Reacher that still has all the skills as well as an added insight into what people can do to themselves and others. In the 22nd book it is a welcome fact that Jack has picked up some more analytic skills to match his physical prowess. Lee Child’s book is right on point with issues of today.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

I can honestly say this book grabbed me from the start and I had a hard time putting it down. This is the best Reacher in a while!

The setting: "Reacher takes an aimless stroll past a pawn shop in a small Midwestern town. In the window he sees a West Point class ring from 2005. It’s tiny. It’s a woman cadet’s graduation present to herself. Why would she give it up? Reacher’s a West Pointer too, and he knows what she went through to get it." And the scene is set.

There's a gradual reveal but a steady pace. Child injects his usual dry humor [occassionally--this is serious stuff]. The characters are all well drawn and intriguing. Didn't feel as formulaic as I was so engaged in the story--lots of layers and pieces to put together. And it kept me going and going wanting to see how it fit and how it would end. Not at all disappointed. Highly recommend for fans of this genre and this series.