Worth Dying For
ISBN: 9780553825480
Description
Has Jack Reacher finally met his match? His previous adventure ended with Reacher trapped in a desperate situation from which escape seemed impossible. Even for him. Was that really the end of the road for the maverick loner?
Reviewed on 2nd June 2012
For once, Lee Child's Worth Dying For follows straight on from the previous novel in the Jack Reacher series, 61 Hours, although it only really touches upon the events in passing. Reacher is trying to make his way south to Virginia, and finds himself in a Nebraskan motel on the way, where he once again gets caught up in a local dispute.
It's probably one of the most violent of the series, from what I remember of the others, with a lot of fighting - it's not something that's ever far away from Reacher but in this book it seemed more brutal.
The story is framed as a mystery - with Reacher investigating an ancient history and a modern puzzle side-by-side - and I think Child presents it quite well. It's presented in the third person (whereas some of the Reacher stories are first-person), which feels a bit awkward because it means that some of the narrative has to be presented in a rather vague manner to keep secrets from the reader.
I'm a little ambivalent about how highly I rate it relative to the older books in the series - I enjoyed reading it, but felt that the plot was slightly less believable than they have been.