Make Me is the twentieth book in the Jack Reacher series. Once again Lee Child delivers for the reader, this Reacher has pace and power, and everything you would expect. This is a detective story, a battle of psychology, plenty of violence with some lust thrown in. Jack Reacher is on a train, where the journey will end in Chicago, and is examining the stops on the map. He notices a place called Mother’s Rest, and he decides to get off and investigate the place, it must have a museum explaining its unusual name. A woman approaches him when he gets off the train, but he is not the person who she is expecting, even so she walks with Reacher to the local motel. Both are being watched. Reacher is wandering about Mother’s Rest trying to find out how the place gained its name, but there is no museum, and the locals do not know either. What Reacher does notice is that he is being followed, and that there must be some sort of telephone tree at work. When he enters the diner for his breakfast, he also finds the woman he spoke to the previous evening. The woman explains that she is a private detective and a former FBI agent, Michelle Chang, who was waiting for her colleague who had contacted her asking to meet in Mother’s Rest. As yet he had not appeared, and nobody in the town seemed willing to discuss anything about him. So, Reacher decides to stay around and help Chang find her colleague, and at the same time find out more about Mother’s Rest. They begin to work together searching for her missing colleague and if there are any clues as to his whereabouts. What they do get is various snippets of information, but they need more. This means they have to travel to Oklahoma City, buy even that leaves them with many unanswered questions. They are being watched wherever they go. Their search leads them to some of the darkest places on the dark web. Even they are not prepared for what they find. That will take a strong stomach, and a few noxious smells along with an all-out violent defence of themselves. What they do find disturbs them, but Reacher will make sure it all works out. Another winning Reacher thriller with plenty of violence. Make Me grabs you by the throat and holds you all the way to the end. Second to None.

Jack Reacher is a hero and an anti-hero at the same time,he is an anacist,while a defender of the status quo,he is a manic depressive and an optimist. The Reacher books are escapism, easy reading treats, they have been described as trash but at the same time sell millions. They sell millions for a reason, and this reviewer believes that reason is because they are very good. Empty your mind relax with a glass of wine and let Dare me entertain you for a night or two, it won't be any more than that because the book demands to be finished. Not only are the tales well researched, plausible, and current,the thoughts on life by Jack Reacher are priceless,and worth the cover price on their own Don't buy this book if you haven't been introduced to these books before, buy the earlier editions, then buy this one. You won't be disappointed.

There’s a truism, wrong in my view, that all Reacher books are the same. Fair enough, there’s a murder, fair enough, our Jack will have to bust some heads to bring things to a conclusion, and fair enough he usually limps away basically unscathed – but series fans know that there are actually a variety of different types of Reacher novels. There are the military books, where his past catches up with him, there are the location books, where his environment plays the main villain, there are the personal grudges and there are the serial killer thrillers. Best of all, there are the drifter novels. These hark back to Lee Child’s first thriller, Killing Floor, and have their roots in old western films. The incorruptible hero wanders into a small, remote town, minding his own business. He sees injustice and can’t walk away. That’s what we’re up against in Make Me, and it’s absolutely thrilling. Reacher gets off a train in the middle of nowhere. Some town he’s never heard the name of before and stops to have a look around. He meets one of Lee Child’s patented strong female characters, a private investigator, whose partner has asked her to meet him there and then never arrived. They’re out in the middle of nowhere, not even a phone signal between them, and the natives are hostile. When the local toughs try to scare Reacher out of town, he knows there’s something wrong. And fascinatingly, this is a first for a Lee Child novel. He wrote it while being observed by an academic journalist who was writing a book about how Make Me came together. Child said afterwards that the impetus to explain each narrative and character decision to the journalist meant that he thought very carefully. Due to this there’s not an ounce of fat on the book, and the end reveal is genuinely shocking. But this isn’t some cerebral psychological thriller designed in a lab - Make Me also that crucial vein of anger that makes the best Lee Child novels. We know throughout, from an ominous note, that there are a rumoured two hundred deaths involved. About two thirds of the way through the book I thought I had it figured out – why are people getting off the train in this small town in the middle of nowhere and then disappearing? Child builds the suspense and dread masterfully, and deploys one of his best twists in years. When Reacher discovers the truth, it’s something even he has never seen before, something that demands retribution, which comes in an explosive, shocking finale. It’s fitting that this, Child’s 20th novel, is his best in years – easily out-striding the much younger competition. Let’s just hope those rumours about the 21st novel being the last in the series aren't true…

So, we have an early appearance of 'that's for damn sure', page 49 no less! Toothbrush in pocket too - but not considered as a weapon but that's okay, because a butter knife was mentioned! Lots of fisticuffs, much blood and broken bones not to mention brains splattered about. The logical brain in top gear. What more could we possibly want? Oh, and the plot was pretty good too, and there were some other characters aiding the Man God Reacher.

This is my first Jack Reacher novel. The writing is sparse, the scene is set with pinpoint accuracy, no loose words here. Kept me guessing until the end.