Jack Reacher Attempts to Rescue a Couple of Kidnap Victims the Hard Way

For a guy who is often simply minding his own business, Jack Reacher seems to get into a lot of trouble. In this, the tenth installment in the series, Reacher is enjoying a quiet cup of coffee, sitting at a table outside of the coffee shop in New York City. It's late at night and as Reacher is sitting there, a man gets into a car across the street and drives away.

It's nothing out of the ordinary, but Reacher is a guy who notices things. and so when he's sitting in the same spot the next night and is approached by a man looking for information, Reacher is able to describe perfectly the man he saw for an instant twenty-four hours earlier. It's a remarkable ability, but then Reacher is a guy who also always knows exactly what time it is without wearing a watch.

The guy who approaches Reacher convinces him to accompany him to the Dakota, the famous residential building where John Lennon once lived. There the guy introduces Reacher to his boss, Edward Lane, a very wealthy man who runs a group of "security consultants." Lane explains that his wife and stepdaughter have been kidnapped. The ransom, a million dollars, was left in the trunk of the car that Reacher saw being driven away. Lane isn't worried so much about the money, but he would very much like to get his wife back, alive and unharmed.

Of course Lane is not supposed to involve the cops and, as an ex-army investigator, Reacher has a skill set that Lane's other employees do not. Lane convinces Reacher to sign on and help get his wife back, offering Reacher a million dollars for a successful rescue.

From there we're off and running, or rather, Reacher is, of course, while we sit back and enjoy the ride. It's a clever plot and Reacher is sometimes ahead of the game and at other times behind, but whichever the case, he's always fun to watch. This is another very addictive novel from one of the best in the business.

NYPD Detective Frank Janek Confronts a Most Unusual Case

First published in 1984, this is the second novel by William Bayer to feature NYPD homicide detective Frank Janek. As the book opens, Janek gets some very bad news; his “rabbi” in the department, a retired detective named Al DiMona has committed suicide. DiMona’s widow believes that her husband was tracking down an old case and can’t imagine why he would have taken his own life in the middle of it.

Janek promises to look into the situation and try to figure out what case DiMona might have resurrected. But before he can even begin to do so, as he is leaving DiMona’s funeral, the chief of detectives assigns him to a new and very bizarre murder case. A hooker and an apparently prim and proper female schoolteacher have both been knifed to death in their respective apartments within a few hours of each other. The killer then decapitated the two victims and switched their heads, doing so in such an artful manner that at first the people discovering the bodies don’t even realize that the heads have been switched.

Janek leads the team of detectives investigating the killings, but there are very few clues and the solution to the case will depend upon Frank Janek’s ability to get into the mind of a very clever and demented killer. At the same time he discovers and begins to pursue the case that Al DiMona had been following at the time of his death, and both investigations may put Janaek and the people he cares about in very grave danger.

This is an excellent police procedural from a time before cell phones and computers and when the technology of crime scene investigation was not nearly as sophisticated as it is today. Janek is a very appealing protagonist, and this book inspired a series of made-for-TV movies starring Richard Crenna as Janek. The book may be a bit hard to find at this late date, but it’s certainly worth looking for.

BROKEN Is Another Great Book from the Best in the Business

This collection of six novellas constitutes another excellent book from Don Winslow, who for my money is the best crime writer working these days. The stories feature cops, crooks, bounty hunters, a bail bondsman, border patrol agents, dope dealers and others, all of whom are expertly drawn. Every one of these stories is cleverly plotted and sucks the reader in from the opening lines, refusing to let go. The stories and the characters are clever and compelling, by turns violent, witty, funny, and ultimately heart-breaking.

Long-time fans of Winslow's work will recognize some familiar characters, most notably weed growers Ben, Chon and O, who first appeared in 2012 in The Kings of Cool. Here, in what the author describes as an "intermediate adventure," the three best friends are vacationing in Hawaii where they run into a battle with some local gangsters while attempting to expand their area of production.

All of the stories are first-rate, but my favorite is "Crime 101", which Winslow dedicates to "Mr. Steve McQueen," and which perfectly evokes the sense of cool that characterized the late, great actor. The story pits a very clever and successful jewel robber who haunts California Highway 101 and who is looking for that fabled one last score. He's pitted against a detective who, contrary to the perceived wisdom of the various police agencies investigating the string of robberies, believes that they are all the work of a single criminal.

Both the robber and the detective are great characters as are all the minor players who inhabit this and the rest of the stories. As always, Winslow writes beautifully and these stories and these characters immediately get into your head and into your heart. As is so often the case with a novel by Don Winslow, I can hardly wait to read it again.

NYC Detective Frank Janek Confronts a Killer Bird in PEREGRINE

Peregrine, which won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1982, is the book that introduced New York City homicide detective Frank Janek. Divorced for a number of years, Janek lives alone and repairs old accordions in his spare time. But most of all, Janek is devoted to his job and gets consumed by this first case which has to be one of the oddest in the history of crime fiction.

The book opens when a reporter for a New York City TV station, Pamela Barrett is struggling to hold on to her job. By chance, she happens to be at the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center when a giant peregrine falcon drops out of the sky and knocks a young female skater to the ice. The bird then slashes the woman's throat and flies off into the sky.

Amidst the panic, Pam notices that some Japanese tourists have been filming the skaters and captured the attack on film. She persuades them to give her the film, races back to the studio and reports the scoop of the year. She does this so successfully that she becomes an overnight sensation, breathlessly reporting to terrified New Yorkers the latest news about the killer bird.

Most people initially assume that the attack was just a bizarre act of nature but then the falcon strikes again, killing another young woman and it now appears that some madman has actually trained this bird to kill human beings and is controlling the bird's action. Pam thus takes a deep dive into the world of falconry, attempting to discover how the bird could be trained to kill a human and, more important, who is responsible for the bird's actions.

Enter Frank Janek, who's in charge of the police investigation of the murders. He too would like to know who trained and is controlling the bird. But Janek and Pam are adversaries in the sense that each wants the other to freely share information, but neither of them wants to do so. Janek wants to solve the crimes; Pam wants to maintain her ratings and build her career. She wants credit for bringing the falconer down.

As the book progresses, we meet the killer and learn a great deal about falconry. The book devolves into a psychological study of all three of the main protagonists, but especially the killer who is seriously weird.

The book has an interesting premise, but forty years after its original publication, it doesn't have the impact that it might have had originally. Or, to be fair, it didn't work for me as well as I might have hoped. The book seemed to get bogged down a bit with all the psychological analysis, and the premise requires perhaps too much a suspension of disbelief. The climax is more than a bit bizarre and left me shaking my head. That said, I enjoyed the character of Frank Janek and so will still go ahead to read the second book in the series.

DRIVING FORCE Is a Solid Novel from Dick Francis, But Not One of His Best

Freddie Croft is an ex-jockey who, since retiring, has built a very profitable business transporting horses to races and back for their owners. Freddie loved being a jockey and this is a way of keeping his hand in the game, at least to some extent. He runs a pretty tight ship, but his whole enterprise is placed in jeopardy when one of his drivers violates one of Freddie's most important rules and picks up a hitchhiker. When the driver reaches the point where his passenger was to leave the horse van, the driver discovers that the passenger has died. Not knowing what else to do, he drives the van and the body back to Freddie's farm and has to face the music.

The dead body in the truck opens the door to a run of mysteries and bad fortune for Croft and his operation. He discovers that someone has been using his vans to smuggle something, but he doesn't know what it is or was. As the mystery deepens, someone else will die and Freddie Croft will find himself in mortal danger.

This is a fairly typical Dick Francis novel although it lacks the tension of many of the better books in the series. This may result from the fact that there is no nasty, violent, amoral villain operating behind the scenes as there often is in these novels. In consequence, although some bad things happen to Freddie, the reader doesn't sense the danger here that you usually do in one of these books.

Francis often uses these novels to explore various aspects of the racing world and in this case, we get a thorough education about the business of transporting horses back and forth between races and other venues. It's something so mundane that most people wouldn't even think about it and yet, of course, it's an absolutely vital function. We also learn a fair deal--perhaps too much, actually, about viruses, computer and otherwise, although this information is now somewhat dated. Still, it's a pleasant read, and fans of the series will no doubt enjoy it.

Jack Reacher Finds Himself in the Middle of an Intricate Puzzle

The ninth installment in the Jack Reacher series is one of the better books in the series. It opens when a highly efficient sniper sets up in a parking garage in a Midwestern city and shoots five people dead, missing with only one of six shots. The shooter gets away clean but leaves what appears to be a boatload of evidence in his wake. Following the forensic trail, the police quickly arrest an ex-army sniper named James Barr. The evidence against him is overwhelming, but once arrested, the only thing Barr says is, "Get me Jack Reacher."

Reacher, it turns out, is already on his way. Reacher has been whiling away his time in Miami Beach when he sees a news report about the incident. He and James Barr have ancient history between them and immediately upon seeing the report Reacher is on a bus, headed in Barr's direction. Upon arriving in the city, Reacher checks in with the D.A. and with the lawyer who's defending Barr and who just happens to also be the D.A.'s daughter, and from that point on, everything turns topsy-turvey.

This is a very intricately plotted book, with a lot of unexpected twists and turns that make it hard to review the book without giving away critical information that readers should be left to discover for themselves. Suffice it to say that the book is action-packed with a lot of interesting characters. Reacher himself is in top form and it's a lot of fun watching him reason his way through the puzzle that's been presented him. It's even more fun to then watch him periodically kick the crap out of some truly bad guys who really deserve it. Fans of the series will not want to miss this one, and people looking to try the series would do well to begin here.

Sergeants Sueno and Bascom Confront Another Dangerous and Delicate Case

Army CID sergeants George Sueno and Ernie Bascom encounter one of their most delicate and dangerous cases yet when they are summoned to the scene of a murder in the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea during the 1970s, when tensions between the two Koreas and between North Korea and the United States are still very high. There they discover the body of a Korean soldier, Corporal Noh Jong-bei, who was working with the Americans. The victim had been murdered by a blow to the back of the head and left lying across the line separating North and South Korea.

The North Koreans try to claim the body, but on orders from a superior officer, Sueno and Bascom drag it onto the South Korean side of the border. In the process, they create an international incident that could ultimately spark a resumption of the hostilities between the warring parties. While the North Koreans insist that Jong-bei was murdered by an American, at least one American commander insists that the North Koreans were responsible and tensions begin to rise. As they do, Sueno and Bascom are unfairly blamed for instigating the trouble and the only way out of the mess is for them to solve the killing.

The investigation is taken away from Sueno and Bascom, though, and given to others who quickly "solve" the crime and defuse the international tension by arresting an American private named Teddy Fusterman and charging him with the murder. Sueno and Bascom had originally concluded that the weapon used to kill Jong-bei was a military entrenching tool and a bloody entrenching tool is found in Fusterman's locker. Case closed.

Although warned off the case, Sueno and Bascom continue to investigate and raise doubts about Festerman's guilt. In the meantime, they are ordered to investigate the disappearance of the American wife of a U.S. officer who has gone missing after being seen with a Korean woman known for recruiting women to work as "hostesses" in clubs that cater to wealthy businessmen.

Both cases are complex and, as often happens in these novels, will have Sueno and Bascom often skating on very thin ice. It's always fun to follow their adventures and misadventures and it's always interesting to learn about the Korean history and culture that is integral to these books. The Line is a solid entry in a very good series.