PERSUADER
Written by Lee Child & Reviewed by the Green Vegetable
Just an outstanding first chapter. First thing to note is that it is first person POV, a choice that hasn’t been made since Killing Floor. For all the books in between, Reacher has been more of a vessel than a fleshed out character; a sort of Robocop. Most internal conflicts arrived due to external stimulus in previous capers, so perhaps this is going to be an awfully introspective story vs previous iterations, or if this was just a choice made for chapter one a la prologue. Or maybe it’s something cool that I don’t even know about.
Anyway, Reacher broke up an attempted kidnapping of some heir to the oriental rug empire, then the kid begged him to take him back to his parent’s secret hideout somewhere in coastal Maine. Reacher reluctantly brings him there, only to be sequestered in some guest room while the boy naps off his shock and the family waits for the patriarch to get home to discuss next steps on account of the attempted kidnapping. The boy is missing a right ear from previous kidnaps. The final sentence of the chapter is Reacher emailing a secret accomplice two words: I’m in. Outstanding!
Chapter two is the background. Reacher met with Duffy and Elliot, two cops who sent some Agent Teresa Daniel in to go after this Beck fellow who not only imports rugs, but likely drugs (sweet wordplay) The agent has disappeared and it sounds like Elliot was at fault, so now everything is off the books and without DOJ knowledge. They find Reacher and pitch a staged kidnapping to gain this boy’s trust so that he will bring Reacher to Beck, the father of the boy. The two agents saw Beck meeting with Quinn, an LA drug lord. Only problem is that Reacher thought Quinn died 10 years ago when he was shot and left for dead in the ocean. Reacher is all about hunting down Quinn, a man he saw at an opera house (inciting incident), the DOJ just wants their agent back and has been after Quinn – they see Beck as the key to nailing Quinn but also obviously getting their agent back.
Third chapter is like when James Bond first meets the villain in a 007 novel, where neither is forthright about who they really are. Reacher hiding he’s undercover and Beck hiding that he’s a criminal, etc. There’s a pissing contest with Duke & Paulie, the two bodyguards. Each are massive and don’t seem to take to Reacher. There’s also a maid and a cook, plus Mr. & Mrs. Beck and child. Reacher is using his shoe comm to send updates. He is forced to do some Russian roulette thing, then he arm wrestles Paulie to a draw. Kind of silly really. (The interpretation of this scene in the Amazon show is far more engaging) Then he’s tasked with driving a truck full of rugs to some location to drop and pick up an identical rug truck. More or less an exposition chapter framed as “the first day of work” – which is just fine, because we’re all in naïve sponge mode on day one so it doesn’t feel like the author’s talking all the background to the reader – it’s much more immersive.
Next chapter is the drive. Reacher takes the van, he meets with Duffy and Elliot at some rest stop. They try to figure out what’s going on and why he’s been tasked with livery chores. Great way to put the reader in the protag’s shoes. They can’t seem to find anything untoward and are paranoid about being fact checked regarding the scam they ran to gain Beck’s trust. Reacher continues on with the sting and goes on his field trip. After his van driving, he meets with Beck and Duke and they’re clearly huddling up with Angel doll, some dude that was tracking Reacher all day. Angel reveals that he’s on to Reacher, so Reacher kills him and leaves him in the trunk, then gives Beck and Duke a ride back to the mansion. At night, Reacher sneaks out with the assistance of Duffy and treks to the warehouse where the trucks were originally and Angel’s body is now. He takes the car to a long term parking garage and then returns back to the mansion. Elizabeth Beck left in the middle of the night to go stare at the ocean for some reason as well. During Reacher’s adventure he stumbles across a domicile on the property that was clearly a prison. And given that Teresa Winters real name is Teresa Justice and there was the word ‘justice’ carved into the stone along with a date…most likely Teresa is still alive and nearby.
There’s a shipment today so Reacher is tasked with chaperoning Elizabeth Beck i.e. keeping her away during the shipment. She floats Jack being a cop but he’s too paranoid it’s a sting to confirm. He meets with Duffy during the day to confirm Theresa is alive and that Paulie and Duke are ex officers. He takes Beck back home and she admits to her relationship with Paulie. The guys know Angel doll is missing when Jack gets back. They make him change plates on the Cadillac before asking him to drive them to Hartford.
They think they’ve reached the kid’s kidnappers in Hartford but Reacher knows it’s misinformation. They raid the phony safe house and Reacher kills Duke during the gunfire to get promoted into the new job opening created by Duke’s demise. But all the stuff he stashed when he returned to the house – Angel’s keys, some Glock etc - are all washed away by the tide. Likely the kid will discover it since he talked last chapter about morning walks to see what the shore acquired overnight.
Beck promotes Reacher and Jack tells Paulie no more raping Elizabeth. There’s also chatter of a mole that’s gonna be dealt with. Maybe government. Reacher panics, contacts Duffy to tell her that her cpu may be bugged because the word is out. Also Reacher is convinced no one found his guns before Beck gives him a gun for the new job. Then Jack is tasked with disposing of the mole. He’s certain it’s Teresa Daniels but it turns out it’s the maid. Also there’s back story about some girl Kohl that Reacher met at Army. She was ultimately killed by Quinn.
Reacher and Duffy meet after he disposes of the maid with Harley in the ocean. Neither knew about the maid, despite her having the shoe email thing too. The whole thing is a mess so Jack just needs to find Theresa and get out. Beck and also Quinn were lost causes. The land lines and the cell service both go down, to Beck’s confusion. Reacher thinks Duffy did it to the comms, meaning the bodyguards from the beginning must be on the loose.
Chapter ten is kind of a weird reset chapter. Reacher takes the Saab to go check around about the phones, knowing the bodyguards are enroute. He finds one of his partners staking out and they arrange an accident to stop the bodyguards. They arrive and are killed and put in Saab’s trunk. Reacher finds loose vinyl and stored papers but doesn’t get a chance to check them because Beck shows up for dinner. During dinner, Reacher sees Xavier on Beck’s phone and realizes that Quinn’s middle name back in the day was Xavier, a fact learned from that Kohl subordinate. Reacher knows what the papers are after thinking about him and Kohl’s sting ten years prior.
The maid’s notes were the papers and she was working for treasury not DEA, hence why Duffy and Eliot and Reacher had no idea she was a fed. Turns out Beck is into guns more than drugs, hence his vast knowledge of weapons sprinkled throughout the book. Reacher drops off Beck at some meeting then sees his cop friends quickly, then returns to Paulie, only Paulie pulls magnums on him. Xavier apparently placed a phone call and now he’s going to beat Reacher to death in front of Richard and Elizabeth…who Paulie was just about to force to SA one another. Gross.
Reacher wins and dumps Paulie in the ocean. Ten years prior, him and Kohl prepare to arrest Quinn. In the present, Reacher answers Pauline’s phone and speaks to Quinn briefly. Elizabeth and Richard won’t leave, so Reacher recruits his squad to protect them while he, Duffy, and Villanueva go to find Theresa.
No sign of Theresa but they found where she was recently kept again. Then they found Persuaders and other nasty weapons in crates marked as rugs. Then the goon Harley shows. Ten years ago, Reacher tells Kohl to make the Quinn arrest, but sounds like it was a mistake.
Harley gets killed by Reacher and his persuaders. They deduce that Arabs and Quinn are executing a trial delivery with these second rate weapons and Theresa is like a gift. After tonight the business relationship will commence for real. Reacher goes back to the mansion and kills Paulie’s replacement. Then the caterers arrive and Reacher begins his hunt for Quinn in the mansion. Mom and child and cook are still there and Duffy and Villanueva are parked up the road. Ten years ago, Reacher doesn’t hear back after the arrest, so he goes to Quinn’s place only to find their mole and Kohl brutally murdered. Quinn’s doing.
The final chapter. Shootout at the mansion. Reacher gets the drop on Quinn in their banquet room but Richard the son aims a gun at Reacher, so he scrambles and ends up jumping in the cliff side crevice where they tossed corpses. He swims ashore, sneaks back in, kills Quinn to avenge Kohl, knocks out Beck, finds and rescues Theresa, and rendezvous at the hotel with Duffy and Villanueva. Eliot was killed at the gatehouse. There are casualties and the whole thing was off the books but ultimately “they did the right thing” and that matters more than laws and protocol.
One of the better Reacher books in the entire series, but heavy as usual on the casual crimes that get committed over and over again by Reacher and the gang. Quite a high body count (as well as a few fake ones) for a guy so slavishly dedicated to protecting innocents and upholding the law. Paulie and his big giant Gatling machine gun was mentioned SO. MANY. TIMES in this book, and the payoff for it was painfully underwhelming. A rare instance but satisfying scene where the TV series surpassed the book in execution.
