Nothing To Lose is the twelfth Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child, soon to be joined by a thirteenth. It’s also, in my opinion, probably the weakest so far.
In this escapade, Reacher finds his way to a town called Hope where he’s welcome though just passing through – as ever. Just down the road is neighbouring Despair which is far less friendly. Of course, Reacher wants to know why they want him out of town so badly. Out come the old investigative skills and a small smattering of justified violence.
The thing is, Child seems to have used Nothing To Lose as a frame to hang some anti-religious and anti-Bush sentiments from and then shoe-horned a plot in afterwards. There are the usual number of pages, but not really enough story to fill them and when I got to the end I just felt a little cheated.
In fairness, this is partly down to having enjoyed the previous books so much. I think the main issue is that the overall premise (I won’t give it away) is just too far-fetched. Every clue Reacher comes up with is knocked on the head by the “bad guy” of the piece with a fairly acceptable rejoinder. The conclusion is more down to luck than anything else – is he really a bad guy or not? I’m just not used to this vagueness in a Reacher novel.
Otherwise, it’s as well written as ever. Plenty of detail, some good action, great descriptive work and no spoilers for earlier books in case you read them out of order.
I’d still recommend it, but don’t start the series with this one as it may disappoint.
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