Blue Moon by Lee Child **
Reading dates: 18 July – 19 August 2023
In a nameless city, two rival criminal gangs are competing for control. But they hadn’t counted on Jack Reacher arriving on their turf.
I did it! With Blue Moon, I finished reading the 24 Jack Reacher novels written by Lee Child (not his brother Andrew Child). I love the character although I feel that, by the end of the series, he was clichéd and had not evolved morally or even physically, past a few mentions of his age.
Blue Moon is a classic Reacher. Or, put a different way, Reacher-by-numbers. The death count on this one of very high. The topic, trendy. There is a love interest. There is a moral drive beyond the personal. Reacher’s execution of the plan is faultless. He leaves.
I am going to miss him. I am the sort of person who thrives with routines, I do the same yoga every day, I have had the same breakfast for years, even if I add minute changes to these actions. I have also just returned from holiday and the pauses in the routines remind me that it is good to get out of the groove to explore of this is the groove I want to be in. Sometimes it is but sometimes it is also the time to let go.
Learning from Reacher
On how to take out a guy
Reacher stepped around next to him, on the right, and cupped his elbow, and took the guy’s weight in his palm. Mechanically the same thing as a stick or a cane or a crutch. An upward force, ultimately through the guy’s shoulder. Newtonian physics.
He felt it through the cotton of the collar. A silk necktie, at that point about an inch and a half wide. More tensile strength than steel. Silk shimmered because its fibres were triangular, like elongated prisms, which did nice things with light, but which also locked together so tight it was virtually impossible to pull them apart end to end. A steel cable would give way sooner.
On gangster car boots
He could get out,’ Hogan said. ‘They have a safety device now. A plastic handle, that glows in the dark. It pops the trunk from the inside.’ ‘Not in a gangster car,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m sure they removed it.’
On morality
How long are we going to leave him in there?’ ‘As long as it takes. He should have thought about all this before. I don’t see how his welfare suddenly becomes my responsibility, just because he chose to attack my welfare first. I’m not clear how that works exactly. They started it. They can’t expect me to provide a health plan.’ ‘We should be magnanimous in victory. Someone said that.’
On Reacher’s knowledge of cars
What kind of car?’ Reacher asked him. ‘We don’t want to squeeze out again for the wrong people.’ ‘It’s an ’05 S-type R in anthracite over charcoal.’ ‘Remember what I said about armour people?’ ‘We glamorize the machine.’ ‘I didn’t understand what any of those words meant.’ ‘It’s a moderately old Jaguar,’ Vantresca said. ‘The hardcore sports version of the first refresh of the retro model they designed at the end of the nineties. With the upgraded cam followers and the bored-out motor. And the supercharger, obviously.’ ‘Not helping,’ Reacher said. Vantresca said, ‘It’s a black sedan.’
On the army
It’s something they teach you in the army. The only thing under your direct control is how hard you work. In other words, if you really, really buckle down today, and you get the intelligence, the planning, and the execution each a hundred per cent exactly correct, then you are bound to prevail.
On Reacher’s type of women (and performance art)
Ready for her close-up. She stood still for a second. The light from the street was behind her. Petite and gamine, neat and slender, hipshot, dressed all in black, holding a Glock 17. Performance art. A figure from a nightmare.
Previous reviews of the Jack Reacher series
#1 Killing Floor ***
Jack Reacher gets off a bus in a small town in Georgia. And is thrown into the county jail, for a murder he didn’t commit.
#2 Die Trying ***
Reacher is locked in a van with a woman claiming to be FBI. And ferried right across America into a brand new country.
#3 Tripwire **
Reacher is digging swimming pools in Key West when a detective comes round asking questions. Then the detective turns up dead.
#4 The Visitor ***
Two naked women found dead in a bath filled with paint. Both victims of a man just like Reacher.
#5 Echo Burning ***
In the heat of Texas, Reacher meets a young woman whose husband is in jail. When he is released, he will kill her.
#6 Without Fail ****
A Washington woman asks Reacher for help. Her job? Protecting the Vice President.
#7 Persuader ****
A kidnapping in Boston. A cop dies. Has Reacher lost his sense of right and wrong?
#8 The Enemy ***
Back in Reacher’s army days. a general is found dead on his watch.
#9 One Shot *** (2012)
A lone sniper shoots five people dead in a heartland city. But the accused guy says, ‘Get Reacher’.
#10 The Hard Way ***
A coffee on a busy New York street leads to a shoot-out three thousand miles away in the Norfolk countryside.
#11 Bad Luck and Trouble ***
One of Reacher’s buddies has shown up dead in the California desert, and Reacher must put his old army unit back together.
#12 Nothing to Lose **
Reacher crosses the line between a town called Hope and one named Despair.
#13 Gone Tomorrow ****
On the New York subway, Reacher counts down the twelve tell-tale signs of a suicide bomber.
#14 61 hours ****
In freezing South Dakota, Reacher hitches a lift on a bus heading for trouble.
#15 Worth Dying For ***
Reacher runs into a clan that’s terrifying the Nebraska locals, but it’s the unsolved case of a missing child that he can’t let go.
#16 The Affair ****
Six months before the events in Killing Floor, Major Jack Reacher of the US Military Police goes undercover in Mississippi, to investigate a murder.
#17 A Wanted Man *****
A freshly-busted nose makes it difficult for Reacher to hitch a ride. When at last he’s picked up by two men and a woman, it soon becomes clear they have something to hide.
#18 Never Go Back *****
When Reacher returns to his old Virginia headquarters he is accused of a sixteen-year-old homicide and hears these words: ‘You’re back in the army, Major. And your ass is mine.’
#19 Personal ****
Someone has taken a shot at the French president. Only one man could have done it – and Reacher is the one man who can find him.
#20 Make Me ****
At a remote railroad stop on the prairie called Mother’s Rest, Jack Reacher finds a town full of silent, watchful people, and descends into the heart of darkness.
#21 The Night School ***
The twenty-first in the series takes Reacher back to his army days, but this time he’s not in uniform. In Hamburg, trusted sergeant Frances Neagley at his side, he must confront a terrifying new enemy.
#22 The Midnight Line***
Reacher tracks a female officer’s class ring back to its owner in the deserted wilds of Wyoming, on a raw quest for simple justice.
#23 Past Tense**
Deep in the New England woods, a young couple are stranded at a lonely motel, trapped in a game of life and death. Lucky for them, Reacher has just arrived in the next town over.
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