The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child

The 28th instalment of the very popular Jack Reacher thriller series returns to the time when Reacher is still with the US Military Police. Demoted from Major to Captain (and that’s another story) he is assigned as part of a small team to urgently identify and stop a serial killer. Together with a representative each from the Department of Treasury, the CIA and FBI, the team constantly find themselves one step behind as members of a long defunct clandestine CIA operation are killed in a variety of situations.

This reviewer has read all of the Lee Child novels in published order, the last few written in tandem with the author’s younger brother Andrew (in preparation for handing over the main character and retiring). In this reviewer’s humble opinion, the addition of Andrew Child as author has vastly improved the ebb and flow of the novel, resulting in a more absorbing tale, more satisfying and quite entertaining.

There is an amusing short story at the rear of the novel entitled The Christmas Scorpion, the inclusion of which was a good idea as this reviewer was quite disappointed at having finished The Secret and impatient for the next instalment to be published!

Reviewed by Belinda Coombs
Murder and Crime Reading Group