I wonder if the Child brothers read my review on the previous Reacher book. Because this time, it’s all corrected.

Reacher number 30, Exit Strategy, is Reacher restored. Not the broken man of Book 29, not the one shackled to a table with a question mark dangling above his purpose. In Exit Strategy, he walks into the chaos by accident, gets mistaken for someone else, and because he is Reacher, he chooses to stay. He stays because he thinks it’s the honorable thing to do, and in the same situation he will appreciate the same done unto him. And then continues staying because something smells like injustice. And Reacher cannot abide injustice.

The setup is classic Reacher: wrong man, wrong place, wrong time. After my disappointment with No. 29, I was tentative about this one. And the early Amazon reviews had put the book at a three star. I picked this one up thinking it might be my last Reacher book. But then it unfolded with the right pace, right characters, and right choices.

He isn’t broken anymore. He’s here in full Reacher mode. A force of nature, smart, methodical. Whether it’s taking down a motorcycle gang with chains or battling goons armed with speed drills, Reacher is back to being the force of nature we first met in Killing Floor. There’s even a military pulse to his approach. I don’t know from where the Child brothers got the inspiration, but they have paired Reacher with another ex-military. And they together are strategic, tactical, effective. Reacher feels like Major Reacher, and clever as only a drifter can be.

The villains this time have teeth. A private army trying to play soldier, trying to build power and profit out of a fantasy. Reacher has immense pride in US armed forces. So naturally, that fantasy offends him. There is palpable rage when amateurs dress up their greed in military gear. You can feel Reacher’s disdain in every punch he throws. And the book throws many.

The side characters are layered and lively. They add to the story. Their presence is not a filler, they act to move the story forward. And the action in this book. Staged in delightfully odd settings: a dingy cards club, a dysfunctional mine.

It reads like a breeze. The book is probably shorter than some of the recent Reacher books. But if the story ends in fifty less pages, let it end there. I loved the pacing, and I found the plot satisfying.

After thirty books and the movies and shows, I think I know Reacher. Early in the book Reacher gets entangled with a local gang, a gang looking to con an old couple. Reacher teaches them a lesson, and the back and forth between the gang and Reacher continues throughout the book. I was expecting a confrontation between the gang-boss and Reacher. But it was not to be. Reacher uses the gang in other ways.

The fun of reading Reacher is – if you see a bad guy acting like a king, you know that he will have his reckoning with reality in the form of Reacher. In this book, that one bad guy doesn’t get his deserved end. So, it’s not perfect. But it’s Reacher.

After Connelly’s stumble in The Proving Ground, this was a much-needed redemption. And with this one at three star early reviews, I feared another disappointment. But the readers have come around. The ratings have climbed.

As one reviewer put it:

“Reacher is the hero we all want on our side. He bangs heads, kicks butt and takes no prisoners, he does what every reader would love to do…. Reacher reaches more readers than any Booker Prize winner will ever do.” —Paul Diggett, Verified Purchase

I agree with him. Reacher is back.

Whether this redemption is full or fleeting, we’ll know next year. But for now, I’m back to waiting for the next Reacher. The affair continues.