When mystery writers create a series one thing they consider is whether their protagonists will age in real time. Keeping your main character the same age in each book can cause issues but at least old age won’t be among them. Jack Reacher is aging in real time.
Over the course of these novels Child has occasionally taken Reacher back in time to his younger days as a military policeman. In “The Secret” we meet the youthful Reacher once again. As the story begins a patient in a hospital is about to get murdered by a pair of young women who suddenly showed up in his room.
Then we move to Reacher who has been called in to investigate shenanigans at a military armory near Chicago. It is 1992, worn out weapons were getting shipped back from the Middle East. Reacher is with the Military Police and he’s to determine who is selling weapons on the black market.
The action shifts to a ghost telephone system at the Pentagon. A call comes through about the man the women just murdered in a hospital. The victim had been a retired scientist who was involved in a top secret chemical weapons project in 1969 in India. The Secretary of Defense is notified.
The Secretary of Defense informs his wife, the CEO of a huge chemical company, that this scientist was murdered and because she was in India working for a chemical concern during that period, it might be smart to stay home for a few days, just to be safe.
The two young women are assassins with personal vendettas against people involved in that India situation. They are tracking them down one by one. Before killing them they demand they identify the one person involved in the project who still remains anonymous.
Now frantic, the Secretary of Defense summons experts from the FBI, the CIA, the Treasury Department, and the Army, that’s Reacher, to try to track down these methodical killers before all the scientists who were involved are liquidated. We find out later these two killers acquired lethal skills in the Israeli Army.
In this thriller about two sisters written by two brothers Reacher is an avenging angel, as usual. He’s violent. He’s methodical. And he’s still incredibly young, at least in this current story. “The Secret” is another classic Child brothers mystery.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
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