Better Off Dead
A Jack Reacher Novel
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3.7 • 336 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Don’t miss the hit streaming series Reacher!
Digging graves had not been part of my plans when I woke up that morning.
Reacher goes where he wants, when he wants. That morning he was heading west, walking under the merciless desert sun—until he comes upon a curious scene. A Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. A woman is slumped over the wheel.
Dead? No, nothing is what it seems.
The woman is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent trying to find her twin brother, who might be mixed up with some dangerous people. Most of them would rather die than betray their terrifying leader, who has burrowed his influence deep into the nearby border town, a backwater that has seen better days. The mysterious Dendoncker rules from the shadows, out of sight and under the radar, keeping his dealings in the dark.
He would know the fate of Fenton’s brother.
Reacher is good at finding people who don’t want to be found, so he offers to help, despite feeling that Fenton is keeping secrets of her own. But a life hangs in the balance. Maybe more than one. But to bring Dendoncker down will be the riskiest job of Reacher's life. Failure is not an option, because in this kind of game, the loser is always better off dead.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this Jack Reacher thriller set in the desolate Arizona desert, danger lurks around every corner. Like, even more than usual. After stumbling upon a strange car crash involving a mysterious female military vet, our drifting vigilante hero gets caught up in a quest to stop a paranoid crime boss. Sibling authors Lee and Andrew Child turn this setup into a tense cat-and-mouse game, artfully building up the suspense as Reacher makes some bold moves to entrap his target. With its gunfights and psychological twists—not to mention the bleak, hard-edged border town setting and the seedy, secretive characters who live there—Better Off Dead is a true page-turner. If the Tom Cruise movies have piqued your curiosity about this long-running series, this is a perfect place to dive in.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Child brothers' superb second collaboration (after 2020's The Sentinel) opens one night at a remote spot on the U.S.-Mexico border, where "the stranger," a large, tall man many will assume is Jack Reacher, has arrived for a meeting. A car drives up, and four men get out. When the driver asks the stranger if he has the money, he pats his back pocket. Then the driver orders the stranger into the car, to take him to someone named Michael. The stranger refuses, saying the deal was for him to be told where Michael is. The stranger gets the best of it in the ensuing fight, until a woman shows up and guns down the stranger. At the morgue, the victim, identified as Reacher, is confirmed dead by the coroner, to the satisfaction of Waad Dendoncker, "the second coming of Al Capone, only with added craziness." Flashbacks explain what led up to the violent confrontation. Smart writing, vivid action scenes, and dramatic twists mark this seamless effort. Even those for whom this is their first Reacher novel will be clamoring for more.
Customer Reviews
Definitely not a Lee Child written book
The dialogue was very hard to read, no flow.
Better Off
I’ve been a Jack Reacher fan for over a decade. I’ve watched him go from one adventure to another, always anxious for the next book to read. “Better Off Dead” left me feeling disappointed, not because it was the end of an excellent read, but because, for the first time, the writing just didn’t feel ‘right.’ It certainly wasn’t Lee Child putting pen to paper. I will of course, continue reading Reacher novels, but I do feel the time is coming to allow Jack to retire.
Good Reacher read
I saw some negative reviews about this book and the author. That gave me pause but I decided to purchase it anyway.
I have read every Reacher book and seen all the movies and now the TV series.
I enjoyed this book and thought it fell right in with the way reacher talks and acts and I was very happy with it. So I am unsure what others saw negatively about it because I thought it was fine.