Chicago. 1992. A hospital patient wakes to find two strangers by his bed.

They show him a list of names and ask a simple but impossible question. Minutes later he falls to his death from his twelfth-floor window - a fall which generates some unexpected attention.

That attention comes from the Secretary of Defense, who calls for an inter-agency task force to investigate. Jack Reacher, recently demoted from Major, is assigned as the Army's representative. If he gets a result, great. If not, he's a convenient fall guy.

Reacher may be an exceptional military investigator, but office politics aren't what gets him up in the morning. As he races to identify a cold-blooded killer and uncover a secret that stretches back 23 years, he must navigate around his new partners.

Will Reacher bring the bad guys to justice the official way . . . or his way?

Lee Child (born 1954, Coventry, England) is the pen name of British thriller writer Jim Grant . His wife Janeis a New Yorkerand they currently live in New York state. His first novel, Killing Floor, won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel.
Each of Child's novels follows the adventures of a former American Military Policeman named Jack Reacher who is wandering the United States.