61 Hours

I quite enjoyed 61 Hours by Lee Child which is another Jack Reacher story. I'd avoided him for a while because Reacher is "too good to be true", but the reader needs to suspend belief for the duration and enjoy the ride. Reacher is stranded in a freezing snowbound town in South Dakota and helps the local police investigate murders and protect a witness who saw a drug dealer transaction. The ruthless crime boss, Plato, behind the murders and the drug dealing has far reaching tentacles to ensure his bidding is done. We learn a lot about Reacher's background in this book (if we care). I thought it was unrealistic that Reacher didn't work out who the killer was long before he did. Throughout the story there is a countdown of the 61 hours, a countdown to what we wonder, but don't learn till the climactic and unsatisfactory end. The reader turns the page at the end to be shown the most irritating words which can be seen at the end of a TV program or a book - "to be continued". The next book is Worth Dying For but is a "stand alone" which, according to a review, doesn't reveal what happened to Reacher in 61 Hours until about midway through. 4/5