The Secret

A Jack Reacher Novel

By: Lee Child, Andrew Child

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

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

A string of mysterious deaths. A long-classified mission. A young MP with nothing to lose.

1992. All across the United States respectable, upstanding citizens are showing up dead. These deaths could be accidents, and they don’t appear to be connected—until a fatal fall from a high-floor window attracts some unexpected attention.

That attention comes from the secretary of defense. All of a sudden he wants an interagency task force to investigate. And he wants Jack Reacher as the army’s representative. If Reacher gets a result, great. If not, he’s a convenient fall guy.

But office politics isn’t Reacher’s thing. Three questions quickly emerge: Who’s with him, who’s against him, and will the justice he dispenses be the official kind . . . or his own kind?

©2023 Lee Child and Andrew Child (P)2023 Random House Audio

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME

Without Scott Brick’s excellent narration, I would not have listened to this entire audiobook. Andrew Child (although I’m sure he’s a really nice person) does not have the writing skills of his brother, Lee, and it really shows in this book: a group of highly trained officers tasked with arresting a female suspect were portrayed like the Keystone Kops (without the humor and with less common sense), and two females suspects were written as near demigods. Not worth the time and money.

Who wrote this?

This was the oddest Jack Reacher book ever. I didn’t even recognize the character. I wadted a credit.

Disappointing

Big Reacher fan.
Not up to standard of previous novels. Narrator very good.
Story, unremarkable

Too predictable

Jack Reacher is my superhero. And his performance is as espected in this novel.
It starts off with a story where the younger MP Reacher figurens brilliantly out how and why weapens are tampeted with. When that issue is out of the way, he is reassigned to a tasksforce with other agencies, trying to stop the killings of retired scientist.
When reading a Jack Reacher novel, you have expectations. Typically Reacher will have to face a formidable enemy to hjelp and protect someone weaker. This novel has the elements, but the story seems too predictable. It is ok, but just that.
Hopefully Reacher will be back in present time and on a bus somewhere in the next novel.

Great book

The brothers make a good team. I like that the story is set back in Reacher’s military days. His lonely, isolated days on the road as a do-gooder tramp were too isolated and kind of depressing. This is much more interesting.

This is not a Jack Teacher novel

this is more of a story with Jack reacher as a character plus Scott brick is a terrible narrator he has two inflections that's his normal voice and he's pissed off voice very hard to keep the character straight.
the whole narrative and cadence of the story is off it is not a Jack reacher novel.

Dull story, pale in comparison with previous novels

Scott Brick was excellent, but the novel itself was quite dull. Poor version of a Reacher novel

Not up to expectations

Scott Brick is good, but just not the voice of Jack Reacher. The story line is OK, but we’re it the first in the series, I probably would not have been the Reacher fan that I am. Perhaps just as John D. Macdonald determined that the stories of Travis McGee had run their course, Lee child might should have done the same for Jack Reacher. Simply put, for me…Lee Child is the author of Jack Reacher and Dick Hill is the voice of Reacher.

Entertaining story

The story was good, but the narrator is hard to listen to. I may have to actually read the books rather than listen in the future.

Not up to past stories

Little action weak story. Not on of the best works of the authors. Enough said