The New York Times - Janet Maslin
…while it's surprising to find [Reacher] as part of a group in this book, the changeup works…[Night School] gets better as it goes along. Its complexity pays off with a better than usual MacGuffin and real teamwork against a global enemy. It would be absurd to pit Reacher alone against all this, and Mr. Child accedes to that…It's not always easy for Mr. Child to juggle Reacher's chronology. But he knows the juggling is necessary to keep the series exciting, and the choices he's made for Night School are smart ones.
Publishers Weekly
★ 08/08/2016
Set in 1996, bestseller Child’s splendid 21st Jack Reacher novel (after 2015’s Make Me) delves into his hero’s U.S. Army past. Right after Reacher is commended for a mission in the Balkans, he’s immediately sent “back to school.” It turns out that school means a vital and secret mission: a sleeper cell in Hamburg, Germany, has learned of an American traitor with something to sell to Islamic terrorists for $100 million. Alfred Ratcliffe, the U.S. president’s National Security Adviser, tells Reacher and his fellow students—two seasoned agents from the CIA and the FBI—“we have enemies everywhere” and gives Reacher’s team its orders: “Your job is to find that American.” It’s no spoiler to say that Reacher handles the heavy lifting on-site in Hamburg, though he’s ably assisted by two former military police colleagues, Frances Neagley and Manuel Orozco. The premise of the pre-9/11 plot is both compelling and disconcerting, and Child applies his trademark eye for detail to make the whole endeavor surprisingly and thrillingly credible. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
The prose is crisp and clean, and the fighting is realistic. . . . This latest installment has all the classic ingredients: a great setting (Hamburg), a good villain, and a mystery that draws you in efficiently, escalates unpredictably, and has a satisfying resolution.”—The New Yorker
“Another timely tour de force . . . The taut thriller is textbook [Lee] Child: fast-paced and topical with a ‘ripped from the headlines’ feel.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“As gripping as ever.”—The Florida Times-Union
Praise for #1 bestselling author Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series
“This series [is] utterly addictive.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“Reacher [is] one of this century’s most original, tantalizing pop-fiction heroes.”—The Washington Post
Library Journal
★ 09/01/2016
Child's latest Jack Reacher novel (after Make Me) is a prequel set in 1996. Reacher, age 35, is a military policeman fresh off a successful mission that earned him his second Legion of Merit medal for outstanding service. Expecting new orders in line with his excellent performance record, our protagonist is instead told he is going back to school, and that career development is a wonderful thing. Teamed with an FBI agent and a CIA analyst, Reacher quickly learns their classroom assignment is actually an emergency covert task force. Offices are set up, staff gathered, and intelligence revealed. A CIA asset, undercover inside a jihadist sleeper cell in Germany, has heard that "the American wants a hundred million dollars," but no one knows for what. Reacher and Sgt. Frances Neagley travel to Hamburg to work with the city's bumbling yet crafty police chief to identify and find the mysterious American. Reacher and Neagley investigate without the technology and Internet tools available in later novels, and the Y2K problem is a looming threat. VERDICT This way- back novel, with its old-school investigating, street-smart tactics, and classic Reacher attitude, is an edge-of-your-seat book readers won't want to put down. [See Prepub Alert, 5/16/16.]—Susan Carr, Edwardsville P.L., IL
NOVEMBER 2016 - AudioFile
Narrator Dick Hill’s gruff, laconic voice continues to be a pitch-perfect match for swaggering hero Jack Reacher. In 1996, Reacher is on active duty with the Army and has ostensibly been sent away on a bureaucratic assignment. But it’s really a covert mission to stop a terrorist cell in Germany. Reacher must find “The American,” an unidentified man on the verge of making a mysterious 100- million-dollar sale to the terrorists. Reacher and The American are equally cunning, efficient, and pragmatic, and Hill’s no-nonsense delivery expertly captures their cat-and-mouse game. Hill’s considerable range of accents also breathes life into a diverse supporting cast. Hill’s voice remains an indispensable asset to Reacher’s characterization. A.T.N. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2016-08-22
Jack Reacher finds himself involved in a race to stop a major terrorist operation.The Reacher series has had several entries set during its hero's time as an Army investigator. This outing is situated between the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the turn of the millennium, in a time of fear that the coming of Y2K might bring chaos. In other words, a time when the public still considered terrorism only a faint possibility for the United States. Reacher is part of a trio of government experts trying to track down an American who appears to have sold something to Middle Eastern radicals operating out of Hamburg. The novel tries to work up suspense by highlighting how unknowingly close Reacher and his quarry are operating to each other, but the missed connections and the way the action jumps from the U.S. to Europe impedes any momentum. That's not the whole problem, though. The novel contains descriptions of torture which are incidental to the plot and sour the rest of the book. And the shift here to terrorism, as opposed to the individual crime and corporate machinations that provided the villains in most of the series' other entries, doesn't sit right. Reacher novels are terrific pop entertainments. But they don't possess the weight or moral seriousness that allowed books by Eric Ambler, Geoffrey Household, and John le Carré to plausibly confront the dangers and moral dilemmas of their day. For the first time in 20 books, the man-mountain Reacher, and the story around him, moves like a lug.
