Better Off Dead is a different breed of Jack Reacher stories with the open-reins setting of a small deserted town bordering Mexico but a much larger-than-expected scale plot that involves a potential attack on the FBI during Veteran’s Day. I went into the thriller expecting a more crime-oriented narrative but the derivation is an understandable change of pace to keep the stories fresh in a long running series.
Reacher is hopping from town to town where he comes across a woman apparently stuck in a crashed Jeep. On closer inspection, he finds out the woman is actually waiting to ambush a few unsavory characters who have information on where her brother is being held. When Reacher realizes the depth of the matter, he steps in to help the woman, although halfheartedly at first because the evidence leads to an enigmatic business owner in a sleepy town whose employees are more threatened by him than by Reacher, putting the latter in a new pickle where his considerable size and threats seem to fall short of getting the job done. With a desperation unlike any before, Reacher must identify the big baddie and stop him by unraveling a string of shocking twists and turns using his wits and deductive thinking before time runs out for him and many other innocents.
The action sequences are typical Reacher-styled with an almost slow-motion perception of the hand-to-hand combat sequences that expertly display Reacher’s prowess. Some moves seem a bit unorthodox but make sense once we take Reacher’s huge physique into consideration. The storyline is a unique take on terror attacks but feels a little out of place in a Jack Reacher thriller where more grounded plots work better for a drifter protagonist who’s essentially a dinosaur in today’s technology driven world. The advantage of Reacher’s old school approach is wonderfully capitalized upon by the authors to explain complex matters such as transponders used in explosive materials in layman’s terms to cater to all audiences irrespective of their depth of knowledge on the matter.
Better Off Dead is an adrenaline-pumping read from the very first chapter as Reacher goes to town on the bad guys, augmented by a unique storyline and the trademark badassery of Jack Reacher. Apart from the story dragging a bit and a somewhat anticlimactic resolution, it’s a fun read that offers tons of entertainment for long term fans of Jack Reacher.
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