As I picked up CHAIN REACTION, I literally spoke aloud: “Let’s see what Reacher is up to now.” If you are not familiar with the decades of bestselling novels featuring Lee Child’s main man (which he now writes with his brother, Andrew Child), perhaps you have watched the highly addictive series on Prime Video, “Reacher,” which gets better and more violent with each passing season.

For those who still do not know who Reacher is, I will sum up his general attributes to paint you a picture. This former military mountain of muscle chooses to live off the grid as a nomadic figure, moving from town to town and finding trouble at almost every turn. He carries all of his worldly possessions in a plastic bag. He has no credit cards and minimal forms of identification. He is not easy to find, and at the beginning of this story, General Susan Turner becomes well aware of this as she is in desperate need of his help.

"CHAIN REACTION is classic Jack Reacher, full of violence and intrigue that is pretty much nonstop. This is still one of the most exciting series on the market. And with each passing novel, Reacher shows me a new way to kill someone!"

The assignment with which Turner tasks Reacher is highly confidential. CID Special Agent John Bisley was brutally murdered while on assignment, and she fears that the killers were operating with inside information. Not only was Bisley one of her best, he was married and had a child. His body was found in the small town of Summertown, Colorado, a place known primarily for its many solar farms and huge data centers. As soon as Reacher checks into the only motel in town, he is immediately on the radar of the baddies who iced Bisley courtesy of a coerced phone call from the motel manager.

Reacher gets the jump on the first stooge who is parked in the motel lot and forces him to give up his two cronies who were responsible for Bisley’s death. Using the guy’s phone, he lures them out to the desert with only solar farms around them and takes them down. After getting scant information as to who put the hit out on Bisley, he eliminates them as repayment for Bisley’s family. 

Turner is able to get information about an attorney in California who might be involved in all of this. This is where she sends Reacher next and agrees to meet him there due to the high level of secrecy with this case. Lazarus Lorenzo has offices in both Palo Alto and San Francisco. They decide to check out Palo Alto first, as Bisley was assigned to cybercrime, which is in the heart of the Silicon Valley. If he was getting close to a high-tech business owner enough to get him killed, then this sounds like the ideal place to start the next step in their hunt. 

Meanwhile, Turner needs to figure out who she can trust in her D.C. office without letting anyone know where she is. She sends her second-in-command, Colonel Elwood, out to Summertown to investigate the Bisley case in addition to two burnt bodies that were found in a vehicle in the middle of some solar farms. While there, she is able to vet him to validate that he was not the mole. At this point, she decides to bring him into their mission to have another hand on deck she can trust.

With the three of them working this case, things should start moving quickly. However, the further up the chain they get, the closer they are to a megalomaniac with a global domination plot that no one ever could have expected. Reacher will need to use his brains and brawn if he is going to chop off the head of this snake before they are buried alongside Bisley. 

CHAIN REACTION is classic Jack Reacher, full of violence and intrigue that is pretty much nonstop. This is still one of the most exciting series on the market. And with each passing novel, Reacher shows me a new way to kill someone!