Review: Jack Reacher at age 13 - Already Taking Charge
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 24, 2013
I've read all of the Reacher novels and am a big fan. This short story takes us back to Reachers youth, where the family has just been transferred to the military base on Okinawa, and it gives us a very limited view of Reachers father - for the first time in any of Lee Childs books, as far as I can remember - as well as showing how the young Reacher was already showing the characteristics he has in his later post-military life.The story involves Reacher and his brother dealing with the bullies who immediately confront them in their new school and neighborhood (this adds detail to what we already know from other Reacher novels regarding his youth), plus an added complication involving a problem that Reacher's father has. We even get an early example of Reacher winning over the attractive neighbor girl, so all of the elements of a typical Lee Child novel are here, just compressed into a much shorter read.It flows well and is very enjoyable to read, but I have to say that Reacher's handling of the threats to his family is almost too perfect for a 13 year old (even if he is Jack Reacher!), with his brother and father both deferring very easily to his directions. He even tells the base MP's how to solve their case - and they readily agree to his directions - which was where I finally started thinking that maybe this was asking us to suspend belief just a bit much.Still, it's a Reacher story, and I'm sticking with him through thick and thin! Maybe Lee Child needs to back up further and give us something with an 8 or 10 year old Reacher - someone who is still learning how to deal with these situations and not already taking charge - in order to show us how Reacher worked through some very early difficulties in order to become the person we all know from the novels. What we have here is practically the adult Reacher, just in a less threatening situation, but practically fully formed and thinking through situations and coming up with the solution before anyone else even fully grasps the problem. It's good stuff, but maybe a bit too good if you know what I mean.