Book Review: Blue Moon by Lee Child #BRPreview

Blue Moon

by

Lee Child

It's a random universe, but once in a blue moon things turn out just right.

Publisher: Penguin Books Australia

Imprint: Bantam Press

Publication Date: 29th October 2019

Series: Jack Reacher #24

Genre: Crime / Thriller

Pages: 384

RRP: $32.99 AUD

Format Read: Uncorrected proof copy

Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Better Reading

 

In a nameless city, two rival criminal gangs are competing for control. But they hadn’t counted on Jack Reacher arriving on their patch.

Reacher is trained to notice things.

He’s on a Greyhound bus, watching an elderly man sleeping in his seat, with a fat envelope of cash hanging out of his pocket. Another passenger is watching too ... hoping to get rich quick.

As the mugger makes his move, Reacher steps in.

The old man is grateful, yet he turns down Reacher’s offer to help him home. He’s vulnerable, scared, and clearly in big, big trouble.

What hold could the gangs have on the old guy? Will Reacher be in time to stop bad things happening?

Blue Moon reads as a standalone if, like me, you are new to the series.

When Reacher helps an elderly man after an attempted mugging he inadvertently gets caught up in the Albanian and Ukrainian turf wars in an unnamed American city.

Once Reacher becomes involved you know the odds move in your favour. But it’s not an easy road to recompense.

Reacher teams up with an unlikely bunch of civilians, Hogan an ex marine, Barton a musician, Vantresca an ex Army Commander and Abby a waitress to do battle with both the Albanian and the Ukrainian gangs. The fighting was brutal and bloody and I wondered whether this group would really shake it off so easily.

What starts as a minor take-over, in the city’s criminal underbelly, escalates to an out of control tit for tat as the two gangs have no idea what they are fighting over.

The story is filled with plenty of action and danger, including blow by blow descriptions as every situation is sized up in full detail.

The inclusion of dry humour is a respite from the violence. The body count is high in this novel. I lost count at forty-five!

If you are new to the series or already a Reacher fan this book will not disappoint. 

                           🌟🌟🌟🌟 

My rating  4/5

 

Photo Credit: Penguin Books

Lee Child is one of the world’s leading thriller writers. He was born in Coventry, raised in Birmingham, and now lives in New York. It is said one of his novels featuring his hero Jack Reacher is sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds. His books consistently achieve the number-one slot on bestseller lists around the world and have sold over one hundred million copies. Two blockbusting Jack Reacher movies have been made so far. He is the recipient of many awards, most recently the CWA’s Diamond Dagger for a writer of an outstanding body of crime fiction, the International Thriller Writers’ ThrillerMaster, and the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award.