Amazon.co.uk Review
Breakneck in its pace, uncompromising in its narrative ruthlessness, Persuader is typical of Lee Child's Jack Reacher adventures. After a first chapter that misdirects the reader quite staggeringly, ex-army freelance adventurer Reacher is apparently on the run. As always with Child and Reacher, what we see at first is only a small part of the complex plotting lying underneath. Reacher has his own reasons for taking on this case, reasons that are very personal and go back a decade. Being Reacher, tough with a heart of gold, his emotions--his liking for a drug dealer's wife and son, his more than professional interest in the DEA officer investigating them, his dislike of steroid-crazed thug Paulie--soon complicate his objectives. Childs is endlessly reliable on gadgets--the miniaturised e-mail senders, the big guns--and on action sequences--various fights and a swim in a riptide; he also makes us believe in complex emotions and deeper feelings than a love of violence. This is not one of the best of the Reacher books--it has too many flashbacks and a shadowy villain--but like all of them it is an action thriller for intelligent readers. --Roz Kaveney
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Crime Time, Issue 31 2003
'Will grip readers from the first page and will further cement Lee Child's reputation as a world-class thriller writer'
Literary Review
'Very tense ... real urgency ... a scrupulously structured thriller ... a thrilling and reputable read.'
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
OK! Magazine
'The seventh novel in the best-selling Jack Reacher series. PERSUADER is another gripping thriller.'
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Daily Mirror
'With a huge body count, PERSUADER is ballsy, dynamic and not for the faint-hearted.'
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Book Description
Jack's back - in his most explosive adventure yet.
The Sunday Telegraph
'One of the best writers in this genre ... His hero, Jack Reacher, is in top form.'
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
The Sunday Telegraph
'Reacher has no doubts about his objective: to rid the world of the bad guys. And nobody does it better.'
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Playboy
'Child has a razor-sharp style and crafted seven perfect thrillers ... Think Die Hard without the smirk.'
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Irish Independent
'Jack Reacher is a seriously tough but unbendingly moral loner, a taciturn modern-day Galahad who attracts violence like a magnet ... violent and exciting.'
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Description
Never forgive, never forget. That’s Jack Reacher’s standard operating procedure. And Quinn was the worst guy he had ever met. Truly unforgivable. So Reacher was glad to know he was dead. Until the day he saw him again in Boston. Alive and well . . .
Never apologize. Never explain. When Reacher witnesses a brutal kidnap attempt, he takes the law into his own hands. But a cop dies. Has Reacher lost his sense of right and wrong? Just because this time, it’s personal?
From the Back Cover
Never forgive, never forget. That’s Jack Reacher’s standard operating procedure. And Quinn was the worst guy he had ever met. Truly unforgivable. So Reacher was glad to know he was dead. Until the day he saw him again in Boston. Alive and well . . .
Never apologize. Never explain. When Reacher witnesses a brutal kidnap attempt, he takes the law into his own hands. But a cop dies. Has Reacher lost his sense of right and wrong? Just because this time, it’s personal?
About the Author
LEE CHILD is British, but after he was made redundant from his job in television, he moved with his family from Cumbria to the United States to start a new career as a writer of American thrillers. He now divides his time between France and New York. All his novels feature the maverick Jack Reacher, and all have been international bestsellers.
Excerpted from Persuader by Lee Child. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE
THE COP CLIMBED OUT OF HIS CAR EXACTLY FOUR MINUTES before he got shot. He moved like he knew his fate in advance. He pushed the door against the resistance of a stiff hinge and swivelled slowly on the worn vinyl seat and planted both feet flat on the road. Then he grasped the doorframe with both hands and heaved himself up and out. He stood in the cold clear air for a second and then turned and pushed the door shut again behind him. Held still for a second longer. Then he stepped forward and leaned against the side of the hood up near the headlight.
The car was a seven-year-old Chevy Caprice. It was black and had no police markings. But it had three radio antennas and plain chrome hubs. Most cops you talk to swear the Caprice was the best police vehicle ever built. This guy looked like he agreed with them. He looked like a veteran plain-clothes detective with the whole of the motor pool at his disposal. Like he drove the ancient Chevy because he wanted to. Like he wasn’t interested in the new Fords. I could see that kind of stubborn old-timer personality in the way he held himself. He was wide and bulky in a plain dark suit made from some kind of heavy wool. He was tall but stooped. An old man. He turned his head and looked north and south along the road and then craned his thick neck to glance back over his shoulder at the college gate. He was thirty yards away from me.
The college gate itself was purely a ceremonial thing. Two tall brick pillars just rose up from a long expanse of tended lawn behind the sidewalk. Connecting the pillars was a high double gate made from iron bars bent and folded and twisted into fancy shapes. It was shiny black. It looked like it had just been repainted. It was probably repainted after every winter. It had no security function. Anybody who wanted to avoid it could drive straight across the lawn. It was wide open, anyway. There was a driveway behind it with little knee-high iron posts set eight feet back on either side. They had latches. Each half of the gate was latched into one of them. Wide open. The driveway led on down to a huddle of mellow brick buildings about a hundred yards away. The buildings had steep mossy roofs and were overhung by trees. The driveway was lined with trees. The sidewalk was lined with trees. There were trees everywhere. Their leaves were just about coming in. They were tiny and curled and bright green. Six months from now they would be big and red and golden and photographers would be swarming all over the place taking pictures of them for the college brochure.
Twenty yards beyond the cop and his car and the gate was a pick-up truck parked on the other side of the road. It was tight against the kerb. It was facing towards me, fifty yards away. It looked a little out of place. It was faded red and had a big bull bar on the front. The bar was dull black and looked like it had been bent and straightened a couple of times. There were two men in the cab. They were young, tall, clean-cut, fair-haired. They were just sitting there, completely still, gazing forward, looking at nothing in particular. They weren’t looking at the cop. They weren’t looking at me.
I was set up to the south. I had an anonymous brown panel van parked outside a music store. The store was the kind of place you find near a college gate. It had used CDs in racks out on the sidewalk and posters in the windows behind them advertising bands people have never heard of. I had the van’s rear doors open. There were boxes stacked inside. I had a sheaf of paperwork in my hands. I was wearing a coat, because it was a cold April morning. I was wearing gloves, because the boxes in the van had loose staples where they had been torn open. I was wearing a gun, because I often do. It was wedged in my pants, at the back, under the coat. It was a Colt Anaconda, which is a huge stainless steel revolver chambered for the .44 Magnum cartridge. It was thirteen and a half inches long and weighed almost four pounds. Not my first choice of weapon. It was hard and heavy and cold and I was aware of it all the time.
I paused in the middle of the sidewalk and looked up from my papers and heard the distant pick-up’s engine start. It didn’t go anywhere. It stayed where it was, just idling. White exhaust pooled around its rear wheels. The air was cold. It was early and the street was deserted. I stepped behind my van and glanced down the side of the music store towards the college buildings. Saw a black Lincoln Town Car waiting outside one of them. There were two guys standing next to it. I was a hundred yards away but neither one of them looked like a limo driver. Limo drivers don’t come in pairs and they don’t look young and heavy and they don’t act tense and wary. These guys looked exactly like bodyguards. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
THE COP CLIMBED OUT OF HIS CAR EXACTLY FOUR MINUTES before he got shot. He moved like he knew his fate in advance. He pushed the door against the resistance of a stiff hinge and swivelled slowly on the worn vinyl seat and planted both feet flat on the road. Then he grasped the doorframe with both hands and heaved himself up and out. He stood in the cold clear air for a second and then turned and pushed the door shut again behind him. Held still for a second longer. Then he stepped forward and leaned against the side of the hood up near the headlight.
The car was a seven-year-old Chevy Caprice. It was black and had no police markings. But it had three radio antennas and plain chrome hubs. Most cops you talk to swear the Caprice was the best police vehicle ever built. This guy looked like he agreed with them. He looked like a veteran plain-clothes detective with the whole of the motor pool at his disposal. Like he drove the ancient Chevy because he wanted to. Like he wasn’t interested in the new Fords. I could see that kind of stubborn old-timer personality in the way he held himself. He was wide and bulky in a plain dark suit made from some kind of heavy wool. He was tall but stooped. An old man. He turned his head and looked north and south along the road and then craned his thick neck to glance back over his shoulder at the college gate. He was thirty yards away from me.
The college gate itself was purely a ceremonial thing. Two tall brick pillars just rose up from a long expanse of tended lawn behind the sidewalk. Connecting the pillars was a high double gate made from iron bars bent and folded and twisted into fancy shapes. It was shiny black. It looked like it had just been repainted. It was probably repainted after every winter. It had no security function. Anybody who wanted to avoid it could drive straight across the lawn. It was wide open, anyway. There was a driveway behind it with little knee-high iron posts set eight feet back on either side. They had latches. Each half of the gate was latched into one of them. Wide open. The driveway led on down to a huddle of mellow brick buildings about a hundred yards away. The buildings had steep mossy roofs and were overhung by trees. The driveway was lined with trees. The sidewalk was lined with trees. There were trees everywhere. Their leaves were just about coming in. They were tiny and curled and bright green. Six months from now they would be big and red and golden and photographers would be swarming all over the place taking pictures of them for the college brochure.
Twenty yards beyond the cop and his car and the gate was a pick-up truck parked on the other side of the road. It was tight against the kerb. It was facing towards me, fifty yards away. It looked a little out of place. It was faded red and had a big bull bar on the front. The bar was dull black and looked like it had been bent and straightened a couple of times. There were two men in the cab. They were young, tall, clean-cut, fair-haired. They were just sitting there, completely still, gazing forward, looking at nothing in particular. They weren’t looking at the cop. They weren’t looking at me.
I was set up to the south. I had an anonymous brown panel van parked outside a music store. The store was the kind of place you find near a college gate. It had used CDs in racks out on the sidewalk and posters in the windows behind them advertising bands people have never heard of. I had the van’s rear doors open. There were boxes stacked inside. I had a sheaf of paperwork in my hands. I was wearing a coat, because it was a cold April morning. I was wearing gloves, because the boxes in the van had loose staples where they had been torn open. I was wearing a gun, because I often do. It was wedged in my pants, at the back, under the coat. It was a Colt Anaconda, which is a huge stainless steel revolver chambered for the .44 Magnum cartridge. It was thirteen and a half inches long and weighed almost four pounds. Not my first choice of weapon. It was hard and heavy and cold and I was aware of it all the time.
I paused in the middle of the sidewalk and looked up from my papers and heard the distant pick-up’s engine start. It didn’t go anywhere. It stayed where it was, just idling. White exhaust pooled around its rear wheels. The air was cold. It was early and the street was deserted. I stepped behind my van and glanced down the side of the music store towards the college buildings. Saw a black Lincoln Town Car waiting outside one of them. There were two guys standing next to it. I was a hundred yards away but neither one of them looked like a limo driver. Limo drivers don’t come in pairs and they don’t look young and heavy and they don’t act tense and wary. These guys looked exactly like bodyguards. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
