Lee Child: Deep Down (A Jack Reacher story)

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Short but sweet early Jack Reacher

This very short story shows Lee Child's great writing skills in a nutshell. I really do like the  times when he takes us back to Reacher's early days as an Army Captain in the  military police.

Reacher is told to fly to DC from Frankfurt to meet someone from Military Intelligence who wants him to go undercover briefly to find a leak of information about the specifications of for a new sniper rifle which are being discussed by a pre-Committee of Congress. The interesting thing is that the Committee consists of 4 fast-track female officers who would do anything to enhance their promotion prospects. As this is early Reacher the leaking is being done via fax and payphones!

In a very few pages Lee Child gives us an early picture of the ways Jack Reacher thinks and of course he has a successful stand-off with several thugs. Child's writing style is perfect for a novella - short, direct and quick moving.

Some authors promote their upcoming books by releasing a few chapters as a teaser, others publish a novella/short story with some promo for the new book included. I prefer the latter, especially as writing a good short story really tests and shows the author's skill. I took some time to find this book which promoted "A Wanted Man" that was released nearly 2 years ago.