The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio
After knocking around Europe in his last book…Jack Reacher, is back where he belongs in Make Me, bumming around the country and checking out the infinite weirdness of the American heartland…Child has always been sensitive to the air of menace clinging to lonesome towns on railway lines that only run from here to there, dropping off travelers who promptly disappear.
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
Lee Child's Reacher series has hit Book No. 20 with a resounding peal of wisecracking glee…Everything about it, starting with Reacher's nose for bad news, is as strong as ever…Mr. Child does his best work when he ventures into gutsy new challenges…Make Me presents a huge one, but it takes its sweet time in revealing what, exactly, is underfoot in the vaguely sinister hick town that tempts Reacher…Make Me offers the faintest indications that something about him may change, because this book's spectrum of good and evil is so wide, and its depths of horror so extreme, that it seems impossible for even Jack Reacher to come away from it unchanged. Usually he walks away from one novel and into the next without even getting his hair mussed. Maybe not this time… this is the book that takes Reacher from the kind of cracking wise his fans love and the violence that he understands…into the eerie realities of 2015, not the ones Reacher learned in the last century as part of his military training.
Publishers Weekly - Audio
10/26/2015
Jack Reacher number 20 (after last year’s Personal) begins with the disposal of the body of someone named Keever, with a backhoe in a hog pen near a town in the Midwest called Mother’s Rest, which Reacher decides to visit (as he points out, he has “no place to go, and all the time in the world to get there”). Almost immediately, he bumps into a beautiful, smart-talking damsel in distress, Michelle Chang, who’s looking for her PI colleague: Keever. It should come as no surprise to Child’s vast readership that Reacher and Chang will join forces to solve the mystery of Mother’s Rest, and that it will involve danger, violence, some romance, snappy dialogue, sharp plotting, and lots of travel (Chicago, L.A., Phoenix, and San Francisco). Unlike the other books in the series, the monstrousness of the villainy erases the line separating crime and horror fiction. One happily familiar feature is reader Hill, who’s been giving voice to Reacher since book one. Not only does he convey toughness without sounding like a 1940s B movie sleuth, his villains easily shift from good old boy bonhomie to sneering arrogance, innocents speak softly (sometimes even tremulously), and his version of Reacher’s mixture of cynicism and insouciance fits the character to a T. A Delacorte hardcover. (Sept.)
Publishers Weekly
★ 07/27/2015
Bestseller Child’s superb 20th Jack Reacher novel (after 2014’s Personal) begins with the disposal of the body of someone named Keever, with a backhoe in a hog pen near an almost-forgotten town in the Midwest called Mother’s Rest, which Reacher decides to visit (as he points out, he has “no place to go, and all the time in the world to get there”). The mystery deepens dramatically after he meets Michelle Chang, who’s looking for her PI colleague: Keever. Reacher and Chang make a formidable team faced with a formidable challenge: finding out what happened to Keever, the only clue a cryptic note that reads “200 deaths.” The investigation takes the two from Mother’s Rest to Chicago, Arizona, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley—and to the Internet’s netherworld, the “Deep Web.” What they discover is beyond gruesome and almost beyond belief—it’s decidedly not for the faint of heart—but Child’s complete command of the story makes this thriller work brilliantly. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
Lee Child’s Reacher series has hit Book No. 20 with a resounding peal of wisecracking glee. Everything about it, starting with Reacher’s nose for bad news, is as strong as ever. . . . The big guy’s definitely on the upswing. The guy who writes about him is too.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“Lee Child has another winner with Make Me. . . . There’s a reason why Child is considered the best of the best in the thriller genre: He can take all these strange elements and clichés and make them compelling and original.”—Associated Press
“A superb thriller.”—New York Daily News
“Child’s complete command of the story makes this thriller work brilliantly.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“I’ve read all twenty of Lee Child’s novels. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. But I can’t wait for the twenty-first.”—Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker
“[The Reacher series] is the current gold standard in the genre. . . . In Make Me Lee Child delivers another Jack Reacher specialty; the total knockout.”—Dayton Daily News
“Child serves up wingding plots, pithy dialogue, extraordinary background on intriguing topics, and cunningly constructed suspense. But what keeps us coming back—by the millions—is the chance to walk around in the skin of that big guy in the middle of everything.”—The Oregonian
“A dark thriller . . . Lee Child’s Make Me, the twentieth in his wildly popular Jack Reacher series, delivers exactly what readers have come to expect from the perennial bestselling author: interesting characters, tight plots and page-turning action. . . . Readers won’t be disappointed.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Jack Reacher is back. . . . Readers new to this series will find this book a good starting point, and fans will be pleased to see Jack again.”—LibraryReads (Top Ten Pick)
“The reigning champ ups the ante. . . . Yes, there’s breakneck action, but what gives this one its zing is the multilayered plot. . . . The beguiling Chang offers a new treat for series fans as well, and a surprise at the end will keep readers short of breath until the next installment begins.”—Booklist (starred review)
“This series remains as compulsively readable as ever. Child is a master of pacing, stretching out the mystery through short chapters that give rise to bursts of well-choreographed violence. . . . Of course, the biggest strength is Reacher himself: impassive, analytical, secretly romantic, and relentlessly honorable. It’s impossible not to root for him. . . . Reacher is still going strong. Will satisfy fans—and newcomers, too.”—Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal
04/01/2015
Out there, where the train stops once a day, the small town of Mother's Rest awaits Jack Reacher. He thinks he'll be dropping in for a day during his desultory travels, but the suspicious townsfolk, the note about 200 deaths, and the woman awaiting a missing private investigator suggest otherwise. Reacher is on his 20th outing.
OCTOBER 2015 - AudioFile
Dick Hill tells this story as if it’s happening before his eyes—as if he’s a witness to it rather than reading text. Jack Reacher turns up in small-town Mother's Rest, Oklahoma, and meets former FBI agent Michelle Chang, who's looking for a missing colleague. The ensuing investigation, which moves to Chicago, Phoenix, L.A., and San Francisco, touches on dark social issues. Hill matter-of-factly reads Child's descriptions of guns and ammunition as well as the slow-motion choreography of Reacher's many fights. He fully captures Reacher, who is analytical, impassive, relentlessly honorable, and likable. Hill's ability to collapse the distance between himself and his listeners results in an engaging, though scary and violent, audio. S.C.A. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2015-07-15
In this 20th installment of Child's action series (Personal, 2014, etc.), Jack Reacher ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time—perfectly positioning him to unravel a missing person mystery and save the day. Living on the road with his toothbrush in his pocket, ex-military policeman/all-around-hero Reacher is wending his way across the country by train when he alights at Mother's Rest on a whim, curious about the origin of the name. Instead of the expected historical marker, he finds a bunch of unfriendly townspeople and ex-FBI agent/PI Michelle Chang, who's searching for a missing colleague. Drawn irrevocably to both Chang and the mystery, Reacher fights to uncover the truth behind Mother's Rest—a truth that involves the so-called "Deep Web," the dark undercover space of the Internet. Reacher and Chang traverse the country from Oklahoma to Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in their quest for answers. The final showdown reveals that the crimes of Mother's Rest are more sinister and terrible than they ever imagined. Despite (or maybe because of) the expected Reacher-novel formula, this series remains as compulsively readable as ever. Child is a master of pacing, stretching out the mystery through short chapters that give rise to bursts of well-choreographed violence. Sentences are choppy, dialogue is fast, yet there is authenticity to Reacher's world, too. While the mystery is rather shallowly sketched in between the fight sequences, the setting is effectively bland, and the ending makes one feel true horror at the ways of men. Of course, the biggest strength is Reacher himself: impassive, analytical, secretly romantic, and relentlessly honorable. It's impossible not to root for him and his lady friend of the moment—and Chang, to be fair, is tough, if not multidimensional. Jack Reacher is still going strong. Will satisfy fans—and newcomers, too.
