Jack Reacher has come of age, sort of. Night School is the 21st novel from American author Lee Child, and the 21st novel in the Jack Reacher series, which has achieved infamy via the casting of Tom Cruise as the lead character in the film adaptations
Over the past 20 novels, which began with Killing Floor (1997), Child has returned twice to Reacher’s US Army days in The Enemy (2004) and The Affair (2011). In Night School, we are there again – between the events of these novels.
Set in 1996, just prior to the events of The Affair, Jack Reacher has returned from the Balkans, been presented with a medal and then shipped off to an isolated location to go back to school. The classroom is small, his classmates few – just himself, a CIA agent and an FBI agent, and his teacher works at the highest levels of National Security, with the Principal (as it were), none other than the President of the United States.
A situation has presented itself and these men have been identified as the best to quietly resolve it. Someone has been offered US$100m but no one knows what for – that’s where these guys come in. Into the mix come a few ‘old’ faces, better known from Reacher’s future, to assist. They all head off to an emerging, post-Berlin Wall, Germany, identified as the location of the deal, to see if they can identify not only the traitor, but his saleable item or items.
As is expected of a Jack Reacher novel, it moves with the usual dynamic pace, brought about by the description of both location and action. There is the standard Reacher insight and forethought that drives the investigative angle and the martial arts style fight scenes, which play out like a physical chess match from a seasoned master.
The aspect of this novel that lets itself down is that, unlike its early prequels, it doesn’t quite fit. The previous two provided outcomes which revealed more about the man we meet in Killing Floor. Night School feels less of a lesson in Reacher and more like a lunch break – satisfying our hunger, but leaving us wanting more – which, thankfully, we will receive, in 2017.
Reviewed by Glen Christie
Rating out of 10: 7
Released by: Penguin Australia
Release Date: November 2016 all formats except regular paperback which is due to be released in April 2017
RRP: $32.99 trade paperback, $55 hardcover, $17.99 ebook, $19.99 paperback
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