They find Reacher by running a small ad in the Army Times and he sees it and calls. The ad was simply 5 words center page in a boxed column printed in bold type: “Reacher call Rick Shoemaker.” The very senior Army officer who thought of this approach refers to him “Sherlock Homeless.”
It is an international assassination plot involving a sniper that Reacher had sent to prison over 16 years ago that beckons his service, but it does seem like a coincidence. He is paired up with another officer named Casey Nice (“Nice by name, nice by nature”).
The plot complicates itself, of course, when it seems clear that there are 4 possible snipers involved in the assassination plot and the world leaders are at risk in a coming summit in London. This pulls in security from around the world, but Casey Nice and Reacher just strike out on their own, of course. The do talk with some of their security counterparts and the see that they are all like the CIA, or the DGSE, or MI6 in Britain. Reacher adds, “But we’re all still KGB really. Old wine, new bottles.”
The plot may suggest a predictable read but as usual Child is the master of plot and this story is one that will capture your interest.
Quotes from this Novel
“No one talked, but they all said plenty.”
“But we’re all still KGB really. Old wine, new bottles.”
“SVR,” he said, which meant Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, which was their foreign intelligence service. Like the CIA, or the DGSE, or MI6 in Britain. Then he said, “But we’re all still KGB really. Old wine, new bottles.”
Reacher tells us:“Socratic, they call it in college. All kinds of back and forth, designed to elicit truths implicitly known by all rational beings.”
“We both sat there mute, as if we were in a no-talking competition and serious about winning. ”
