Book #47 – 61 Hours

I was excited to get the latest Jack Reacher novel, 61 Hours, ever since I had seen advertisements in the UK back in March. It was released in May, but with a $14 price for the e-book. Economics, for me, meant that I’d wait for the price to come down since I didn’t think it was worth it. It did, and in June I got the book.

It’s an interesting book, one where Reacher finds himself in a new situation. It’s a countdown to an event that will occur 61 hours after the start of the book, and we get reminders at the end of chapters, often every few hours.

Reacher is in a place where it’s hard for him to operate. His bus traveling through South Dakota when it crashes. It’s a blizzard, and the local police are slow to respond and then acting strangely. Reacher realizes something is wrong and is taken into their confidence. A witness is in danger. She’s testifying against a drug gang outside of town and the police are trying to protect her.

The book moves slowly, with relatively little action from Reacher as he tries to puzzle through things. Once again he figures most things out, but misses a crucial piece of information, one in this case that gets the witness killed. That’s not the incident, and it ends on a quick pace, with the words seeming to flow faster as the book nears the end.

However we don’t know what happens to Reacher. I can’t imagine that this is the end of the series, and I wonder how we’ll get the explanation in the next one. Definitely an important book in the Reacher series, but it needs the next book to achieve closure. I don’t like that.