One Shot: A Reacher Novel (Jack Reacher, #9)

by Lee Child

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Don’t miss the hit streaming series Reacher! 

“Pure, escapist gold . . . Mr. Child’s tough talk and thoughtful plotting make an ingenious combination.”—The New York Times

Six shots. Five dead. One heartland city thrown into a state of terror. But within hours the cops have it solved: a slam-dunk case. Except for one thing. The accused man says: You got the wrong guy. Then he says: Get Reacher for me.

And sure enough, ex—military investigator Jack Reacher is coming. He knows this shooter–a trained military sniper who never should have missed a shot. Reacher is certain something is not right–and soon the slam-dunk case explodes.

Now Reacher is teamed with a beautiful young defense lawyer, moving closer to the unseen enemy who is pulling the strings. Reacher knows that no two opponents are created equal. This one has come to the heartland from his own kind of hell. And Reacher knows that the only way to take him down is to match his ruthlessness and cunning–and then beat him shot for shot.

• ISBN10: 0440423015
• ISBN13: 9780440423010
• Publish Date: 17 June 2025 (first published 27 October 2009)
• Publish Status: Forthcoming
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Div of Random House, Inc
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780440423010

Reviews

[zooloo1983]

I finished listening to this book a month ago, so I am late in writing my review and my review I wrote originally got wiped due to a web-hosting failure!! I love listening to these on audible and I think Jeff Harding does a great service to these books when reading them as I do love the voices he puts on. (Dick Hill is still my favourite but Jeff Harding is definitely on par!) You can read these as standalone books as it is very occasionally you might get a reference to someone from a previous book but if you are like me you want to read them from the beginning to get the complete picture.

In this book, we are back with Jack being the present-day Jack. (In the last book we were seeing Jack still as an MP in the army) We are brought in to the story with a sniper attack where five people have been shot and killed but there were six shots fired. As indicated by the book title, only one shot means anything. James Barr, the sniper, is arrested for the killings but says nothing and the only words he utters are “Get Reacher”. However, Reacher is already on his way…but not to save this guy. When he arrives something doesn’t quite sit right with Reacher, and so I tried to solve the clues given (Obviously not literally!). How was James Barr so easily caught? Why was he shooting from the car park? Why all the evidence left to be found? Why only five dead?

I love how we are instantly pulled in to the world of Reacher with no preamble. Lee Child knows how to suck a reader straight in and to take you on a ride. I loved a scene near the end of the book where Reacher and his ensemble are trying to get close to a house to attack and he gets Helen (James Barr’s lawyer) to act as a decoy, I was chuckling because she was running around like a lunatic with no shoes on, on a gravel path to distract Le Zec’s men, it certainly confused them! What Reacher and Lee Child both do, is provide comical relief, I love the dry sense of humour he has. So I often find myself snorting with laughter when I am driving, probably when I should not be, due to something that was said and think, ah typical Reacher!

In this book, I noticed that Child’s loves the phrase “He said nothing” nearly every character at some point in the book said nothing. I started to play a game in the car when I was trying to guess when this phrase would come up again. I also love, in this book and every book, the detail that Mr Childs’ gives the reader to do with weapons and the military, being a soldier’s wife I bug my husband a lot to check how accurate it is and he probably gets bored of me asking lol

When looking at other reviews on this book, I had actually forgotten that this was the first Tom Cruise film as that is all the recent reviews talked about. I for one am actually quite excited to re-watch the film again since reading the book. Love to see what differences there are, apart from the glaringly obvious one being Jack Reacher himself.



Until next time Jack, until next time……