The Enemy by Lee Child

 

Read between October and November,  could not wait to finish it, but things kept interfering.. First published in hardback in 2004, I read the paperback, 464 pages.  A very outstanding Jack Reacher novel, maybe one of the best, difficult to tell because I like them all.  I thought a lot of late friend Nevin who introduced me to this series  with  Running Blind in 2018.  It was the first one I read and also is published  as The Visitor.  But The Enemy has extensive narrative and descriptions about the Army, political in fighting between divisions particularly Armored and Infantry, much description about Army protocols and traditions.  It begins as Reacher in on duty in his new post at Ft. Bird, North Carolina where he was suddenly, reassigned from Panama to his  surprise.  At the same time several other similar ranking MP's are simultaneously reassigned. and his  commanding officer, Colonel Leon  Garber, ,as well.  A reduction in the military force that will of course affect the Army sets the political infighting ablaze.  As it begins Reacher is called about a dead two star  General Kramer  found dead in a motel   It will turn out Reacher is being set up, but by who and why.  The replacement commander is a longtime bureaucrat and Joe warns Jack about him.  A striving young lieutenant Summer is assigned to work with him and becomes his right hand helper and cohort.  g

Page 3,  " The army is a big institution, a little bigger than Detroit, a little smaller than Dallas and just as unsentimental as either place.  Current active strength is 930,000 men and women and they are as representative of the general American population as you can get."  .

Reacher is contacted by his brother Joe and learns their mother, a widow, who lives in Paris is dying so they make plans to visit.  She does die in this novel and they learn something about her past and activity in WWII in the resistance as a very young girl that they never knew.  It is another interesting tale within a tale, woven  into the main story with expertise by the author..  Page 97,  conversation between their mother the the Reacher brothers,  "Won't you miss us , Mom?"  "Wrong question, she said, I'll be dead.  I won't be missing anything.  It's you that will be missing me.  Like I miss your father.  Like I miss him.  Like I miss my father and mother and grandparents.  It is a part of life, missing the dead."   

Maybe because of where I am in my personal grieving of the passing of Jerry last year but the writing in this novel struck me with the philosophy about  accepting death.  It is something we do as survivors.  Page 363, " Life was unfolding the same way it always had for everyone.  Sooner or later you ended up an orphan.  There was no escaping it.  It had happened that way for a thousand generations.  No pont in getting all upset about it."  

Pages 311- 315 about future wars/conflicts and theory, history.  "You know who has done the most for the country?  Who?  Not Armored,  Not the infantry..  The theater is all about the Army Corps of Engineers.  Sherman tanks way back weighed 38 tons and were 9 feet wide.  Now we're all the way down to the MIAI Abrams, which weighs 70 tons and is 11 feet wide.  Every step of the way for 40 years the Corps of Engineers has had work to do.  They've widened roads, hundreds of miles of them, all over ?West Germany.  They've strengthened bridges.  Hell they've built roads and bridges.  Dozens of them.  You want a stream of 70 ton tanks rolling east to battle, you better make damn sure the roads and bridges can take it." 

It takes Reacher going AWOL with Summers, defying orders, forging travel voucher to fly to Germany and back and to CA and back to solve the  crime of who plotted and who killed the General, his wife, his lovers...There is a strange twist with the sexual relationships as  Reacher learns the General was gay.  They must find proof and solve the mystery to clear themselves.  Reacher ends up being demoted from Major to Captain at his own choice, when investigated by JAG over all another surprise for me at the ending of the novel.  This is easily a 5*****.

Back cover

    

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Paradise Valley by C J Box

 

I read this in July 2021, when I was introduced to this author at a book sale.  Paradise Valley was published July 2017 and introduces another character to the author's repertoire, Investigator Cassie Dewell formerly with the  Bakken County, North Dakota sheriff's department.   Cassie has been pursuing a serial killer known as the Lizard King who kills along highways and truck stops where runaways are most likely to vanish.  But for years all has been quiet and then a new murder.  Cassie loses her job but will not give up looking for the Lizard King.  She has befriended a troubled youth, Kyle Westergaard, who disappears.  His grandmother begs Cassie to find him and being now unemployed Cassie agrees to search for Kyle.  She is alone and in pursuit. 

 Cassie doesn't have an over fondness for attorneys,  pages 217-218,  "...most attorneys were under the general impression that they were the smartest people in the room and therefore they were always in control of it.  They liked processes to be complicated and stacked in their favor and they didn't enjoy uncertainty or chaos.  Nothing made a prosecutor or defense attorney more uncomfortable than the unknown."  

Author  C J Box

The writing is good, clear and clean.  The plot was intriguing and kept my interest, there were 340 pages in this hardback edition.  Yhis is an author I will read more of at times.  I give this book 4 ****

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The Fallen by David Baldacci

I read this back in July but as with other books have not been posting lately.  However time to get these books moved along to local sale, so here goes.  Anothe winner from Baldacci.  This one is in the Memory Man series which I have not read in order but no matter.  Published 2018, 417 pages. 

Amos Decker is Baldacci's fictional  character, FBI agent with extra ordinary memory due to a football injury.  This occurs in a rust belt small western PA fictitious town, but one that is typical of the rust belt of the area.  From Book Good reads:    ."Amos Decker and his journalist friend Alex Jamison are visiting the home of Alex's sister in Barronville, a small town in western Pennsylvania that has been hit hard economically. When Decker is out on the rear deck of the house talking with Alex's niece, a precocious eight-year-old, he notices flickering lights and then a spark of flame in the window of the house across the way. When he goes to investigate he finds two dead bodies inside and it's not clear how either man died. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. There's something going on in Barronville that might be the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the country.     Faced with a stonewalling local police force, and roadblocks put up by unseen forces, Decker and Jamison must pull out all the stops to solve the case. And even Decker's infallible memory may not be enough to save them. "

Besides being an excellent thriller/mystery/ read there is a great amount of description of the nationwide drug/opiod crisis.  One example,  page 268-269..."Right, back in the 80's we had the crack crisis.  The government's position was just say no and if you didn't you went to prison.  Sop we locked u[p million, mostly men from inner cities.  Then came the 90's and Big Pharma decided that Americans weren't taking enough painkillers.  They sort of made paid the fifth vital sign.  Spent billions on ads, payoffs to the doctors, used legist looking organizations and think tanks to make it all seem aboveboard.  No possibility of addiction, no long term negatives was the mantra everyone was spouting.  Turns out all of that was based on faulty research or no research at all.  It's ironic but a l;ot of opioids were initially given out to combat lower back pain.     What's ironic.. Because opioid's actually are pretty ineffectual with chronic lower back pain........"  

5 stars no doubt*****

Fron flap cover

Back flap cover

            

Her Mother's Hope by Francine Rivers

Francine Rivers is a very decent intriguing, Christian author.  Her books are usually sagas and I always enjoy them.  This one published in 2010 caught my attention at the local book sale, I had not read it and it did not disappoint me. There are 496 pages which includes the author's notes at the back explaining how she came to write this book.

  It occurs between  early 1900's and 1950's and is about the relationships between mothers and daughter and how intentions are not always perceived as they are meant.  I really related to this book.  It begins with Marta Schneider a young Swiss immigrant who dreams of owning her own boarding house until marriage and motherhood change  her plans.  She vows to raise strong children but her very tough love at times is misunderstood by Hildemara Rose her oldest daughter.  The family  moves east to Northern California so that also resonated with me being very familiar with the places after spending  over 40 years of my life there.  .

I was amazed to read the  author's notes, narrative of several pages at the end of the book describing how she decided to write this saga, which is the first of a two book series. I will have to get the second  book, Her Daughter's Dream.  Below is the first and last of these pages.

I passed this book along to a friend so best to get this post up although perhaps incomplete.  I could relate to the difficulty between mother and daughter somewhat reflecting on my own relationship with my Mom.  Different scenario, but similar theme.  Recommend this fully,  4 stars.****