THE LAST WORD
MIRIAM R. KRAMER
CHAOS CONTROL In troubled times, blunt ‘Reacher’ provides a respite
W
hat do you read when a terrible war takes over television and social media, horrifying you and making you feel helpless to do anything to change the situation? As I sat down to write, I suddenly realized that my reading this past month has been pushed in a very unusual direction by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which started on February 24. Assuredly some mental relief has arrived in reading all the Jack Reacher books written by Lee Child. An action series like this is not my typical choice. Yet as a speed reader, I compulsively swept through Child’s many books because of the way their themes, tone, and structure come together in easily read works suitable for beach vacations or airplanes. Mostly aimed at men, these muscular books, and Jack Reacher the flawed hero, provide satisfying and instinctive solutions to difficult problems. Jack Reacher is a loner, the star of this long-running show. As a military brat and a former member of the Army Military Police, he has had a peripatetic international upbringing, with a French mother, a brother, and a Marine father who moved multiple times to bases around the world. Mostly called Reacher, he has few close friends and no living relatives in most of the books and short stories. He is an army of one, with his own strongly instilled code of conduct and an unyielding, vigilante sense of justice. In attending multiple schools 12
April 2022
Jack Reacher is a fictional character created by British author Lee Child who has written more than 30 novels and short stories with Reacher as the dangerous protagonist. growing up, along with training for the military, he learned to fight bullies hard and dirty to win at all costs. At 6’5” and 250 lbs., he can confront and dispatch predators with great ease. As the founder of the Army Military Police, 110th MP Special Investigations, he serves in a very unpopular part of the Army, but one that suits his intense powers of observation and tenacious desire for the truth.
The series starts with Jack Reacher leaving the service some years after the Cold War is over. He no longer feels useful as the military is pushing people towards retirement to reduce its forces. He has also angered one too many superiors with his independent attitude, so he takes an honorable discharge and decides to become a traveler, thumbing rides or taking buses from one city to another on a whim. In one city he takes a short-
term job as a bouncer, in another he digs pools. Having grown up with an itinerant life overseas, Reacher decides to crisscross the US in retirement. Along the way he finds trouble—in his mind, as Congressman John Lewis once said, “good trouble”—in which he solves mysteries, rights wrongs, and beats up criminals and bullies. LAST WORD > PAGE 13
Old Town Crier
