In the past couple of books I thought that Lee Child was dropping off the pace a bit and just writing novels with Jack Reacher’s name attached. This book is different and is back to the Jack Reacher that brought me to collecting the series. This is a cracking thriller with all the ingredients that Child brought to the character which endeared us so much to him! It seems apparent also that Child agrees with most ARRSERs about the actor who is going to be playing Reacher on the big screen as on page 8 of this book he reminds us forcefully of his size: “Reacher was a big man, 6’ 5” inches tall, heavily built......” It is going to be interesting to see how a midget can play the part!!

Anyway, back to the book. Reacher is hiking from one part of America to another, which is his norm, and sticks out his hand, thumb up in the universal hitchers’ sign. Several cars pass him, don’t fancy picking up such a huge stranger who also happens to be sporting a fresh raw wound to the bridge of his nose, a hangover from the previous novel. After a while a car pulls in with two guys and a woman on board; they are dressed alike so JR assumes they are corporate people on their way to a sales/office seminar somewhere. It soon becomes clear to him though that these people are not what they seem, coupled with the police road blocks that they have to go through.

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This is a middle book of a trilogy documenting the ordinary sailors of the Royal Navy. This volume covers the period 1850 to 1939. It has essentially two themes: what was done to the Lower Deck in terms of pay and conditions (in their broadest sense); and what the sailors thought about it all. In a sense it is about the sailor on the front of a Players’ packet and how he came to be.

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