Breakneck in its pace, uncompromising in its narrative ruthlessness, Persuader is typical of Lee Child's Jack Reacher adventures. After a first chapter that misdirects the reader quite staggeringly, ex-army freelance adventurer Reacher is apparently on the run. As always with Child and Reacher, what we see at first is only a small part of the complex plotting lying underneath. Reacher has his own reasons for taking on this case, reasons that are very personal and go back a decade. Being Reacher, tough with a heart of gold, his emotions--his liking for a drug dealer's wife and son, his more than professional interest in the DEA officer investigating them, his dislike of steroid-crazed thug Paulie--soon complicate his objectives. Childs is endlessly reliable on gadgets--the miniaturised e-mail senders, the big guns--and on action sequences--various fights and a swim in a riptide; he also makes us believe in complex emotions and deeper feelings than a love of violence. This is not one of the best of the Reacher books--it has too many flashbacks and a shadowy villain--but like all of them it is an action thriller for intelligent readers. --Roz Kaveney

2008-06-10 My fave Reacher story

The first Reacher book I read I was quite disappointed with, some months later I happened upon this in a second hand shop and decided to give it a go.....2 days later I'd finished it and have been a Reacher fan ever since. The plot moves at a cracking pace, the storyline itself is simply ace....I love it