By Cameron Woodhead
Night School
Lee Child
Night School. By Lee Child.
Bantam, $32.99
Reliable thriller. Stocking-filler. Is there any more that needs to be said of Lee Child's 21st Jack Reacher novel? Well, yes actually. The series needed a new direction to stop it getting old and tired, and the author has gone back in time to 1996, when a younger Reacher has yet to become the grizzled lone wolf with whom readers of the series are familiar. Here, he's part of a team of intelligence operatives on the tail of a terrorist cell in Hamburg, Germany, with links to a tall, thin, bad guy in Afghanistan. It's a return to a more classical form of espionage thriller, with an intricate plot and action sequences that feel a lot less decorative and balletic than usual. The backward glance is a good way forward, and Reacher fans should be pleased by it.