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After 23 impossible missions and improbable victories, it’s no wonder Jack Reacher ’s gaze is “steady, calm, amused, predatory, unhinged”.
This time he’s in an anonymous city that has been carved up by organised crime, specifically gangs of nasty Albanians and nastier Ukrainians. When the ex-military cop comes to the aid of the Shevicks, an old couple who’ve gotten themselves horribly in debt to pay their sick daughter’s medical bills, he soon realises the only way to solve the problem is to take out the bad guys at the top.
And so, of course, he does — with a little help from Abby, a waitress with all the personality of a sexbot, and three of her friends with useful skillsets.
The violence, like Child’s prose, is “controlled, and timed, and aimed, and crafted” and reaches an operatic, almost comedic level as the gun-toting goons just keep on coming at them.
Blue Moon is an über-thriller in which “things turn out just right”. It’s nothing less than morality pornography: it provides a satisfying climax and leaves you breathless, glad to be alive in a wicked world.
Blue Moon by Lee Child (Bantam, £20), buy it here.
