Worth Dying For: A Jack Reacher Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

Lee Child (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 26, 2011 | Series: Jack Reacher

 There’s deadly trouble in the corn country of Nebraska . . . and Jack Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it’s the unsolved, decades-old case of a missing child that Reacher can’t let go.

The Duncans want Reacher gone—and it’s not just past secrets they’re trying to hide. For as dangerous as the Duncans are, they’re just the bottom of a criminal food chain stretching halfway around the world. For Reacher, it would have made much more sense to put some distance between himself and the hard-core trouble that’s bearing down on him. For Reacher, that was also impossible.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2010: You'd think that after 14 novels featuring hardscrabble hero, Jack Reacher, Lee Child's pulse-pounding series would start showing signs of wear. It is nothing short of remarkable that Child is not only able to continually reinvent his ex-military cop, but that each installment is better than the last. Worth Dying For finds our battered hero hiding in plain sight in a tiny Nebraska town, trying to recover from the catastrophe he left behind in South Dakota (no spoilers here, but readers are still arguing over 61 Hours’s cliffhanger ending). Fans rarely see such a physically vulnerable Reacher (in the first part of the book he is barely able to lift his arms) but it just adds to the fist-pumping satisfaction of seeing our weary good guy take on the small-town baddies. --Daphne Durham --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

In Child's exciting 15th thriller featuring one-man army Jack Reacher (after 61 Hours), Reacher happens into a situation tailor-made for his blend of morality and against-the-odds heroics. While passing through an isolated Nebraska town, the ex-military cop persuades the alcoholic local doctor to treat Eleanor Duncan, who's married to the abusive Seth, for a "nosebleed." Reacher later breaking Seth's nose prompts members of the Duncan clan, who are involved in an illegal trafficking scheme, to seek revenge. Reacher, who easily disposes of two hit men sent to get him, winds up trying to solve a decades-old case concerning a missing eight-year-old girl. While Child convincingly depicts his hero's superhuman abilities, he throws in a few lucky breaks to enable the outnumbered Reacher to survive. Crisp, efficient prose and well-rounded characterizations (at least of the guys in the white hats) raise this beyond other attempts to translate the pulse-pounding feel of the Die Hard films into prose. (Nov.) (c)
Copyright © PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Dell; Reprint edition (April 26, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440246296
• ISBN-13: 978-0440246299
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.3 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (520 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lee Child is the #1 internationally bestselling author of the Jack Reacher thrillers. His debut, Killing Floor, won both the Anthony and the Barry awards for Best First Mystery, and The Enemy won both the Barry and the Nero awards for Best Novel. "Jack Reacher", the film based on the 9th novel, One Shot, stars Tom Cruise, Robert Duvall, Rosamund Pike, Jai Courtney, and David Oyelowo and debuted in December 2012. Child, a native of England and a former television director, lives in New York City and the south of France with his wife and daughter. Find out more about Lee Child and the Reacher novels on his official website: LeeChild.com, on Facebook LeeChildOfficial, on Twitter #LeeChildReacher, and YouTube leechildjackreacher.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

(What's this?)

#8 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#3 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#4 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#4 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#4 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery

#8 in Books

#3 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#4 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#4 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#4 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery

#8 in Books

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

319 of 334 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars " Jacob Duncan said, 'Who the hell IS this guy?' " September 30, 2010

By Julia Flyte TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition

This is a very enjoyable, vintage Reacher adventure. It starts well, slows a bit in the middle, but then picks up with a high body count towards the end. The plot is pleasingly complex and all the strands are sewn up neatly and logically by the end.

It kicks off shortly after 61 Hours. Yes Reacher is alive, although you won't find out how he survived until about a third of the way through. This is a standalone story rather than a continuation of the plot in the previous book.

Reacher is in rural Nebraska. He's on his way to Virginia and only intends to stop for a night, when he is drawn into what initially looks like a domestic dispute but ends up being something much bigger. The town is under the control of a very unpleasant family called the Duncans, who own a transportation company. The local farmers are dependent on the company and therefore live in fear of them. The Duncans have an important shipment coming in, which has been delayed. This is causing problems for their customer and for the customers of their customer. Consequently a food chain of increasingly nasty villains gets involved, with lots of double crossing and mind games going on. Tied into all this somehow is the mystery of a local girl who disappeared 25 years ago and whose body has never been found.

The setting adds a lot to the tension. Reacher needs to hide in a flat and empty landscape where a man can be seen a mile away, with the locals unwilling to help a stranger.

There is one section in the middle that reminded me of Nothing To Lose, with its endless trudging around small town Colorado in the dark, but this lull was temporary and the momentum picked up quickly again. I also liked the way that Lee Child incorporates Reacher's physical limitations. Reacher is no genius this time around: his deductions are logical and he misses a couple of pretty obvious tricks. All in all, it's another nail biting installment in a terrific series.

134 of 148 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Definitely worth reading, but not quite worth dying for October 4, 2010

By T. Edmund

Format:Kindle Edition

I get the feeling like I'm the last person to know; I bought this book still thinking that it would be a shocking resolution to the cliff hanger ending of the previous 61 Hours.

You see I was hooked into the possibilities: could Reacher actually be dead? OK I really doubted it but more likely - would everyone's favourite 00-bearman be crippled with burns? At any rate I thought the pundit prediction that his female counterpart running Reacher's old unit would play the major role of this novel was spot on.

But no. Even just reading the blurb will tell you that Reacher is still functioning. I'm pretty sure Childs plays on our expectations, having Reacher described as "hurting" but at the end of the day he can still kick ass without flinching so one wonders why even bother trying to fool us into thinking Jack Reacher is mortal?

Instead of playing the awesome sequel card, Childs just introduces us to another Jack Reacher adventure - this time versus the Duncans an evil family of hick/pervert/smugglers who control a local farming community with extreme violence and a gang of retired football players (most of whom are named Brett). If that isn't slapstick enough for you, the Duncans answer to a the Italians, who answer to some other bad guys, who answer to some Iranians, who answer to the Saudis - all of whom send a couple of guys to keep an eye on the others, resulting in a small town full of organized criminals who comically murder each other (or get their hearts punched out by Reacher)

While the story is fairly run-of-the-mill for Childs, the prose is solid, and the action is well planned. The drama is somewhat limp as the main characters are nowhere near as memorable as in 61 hours and other Reacher novels, and without attachments the story merely becomes a blow by blow account of Reacher pounding on the baddies, and dressing down the cowering townsfolk.

Still, Child leads the field in thriller writing, and Worth Dying For is a prime example of his brillance, I think as an author not living up to your own works is forgivable when all your works are leagues ahead of everything else in the genre.

70 of 78 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Jack's back October 7, 2010

By AK

Format:Kindle Edition

Who'd have thought it? Jack Reacher survived an explosion that can be seen from space. Read this in a few hours. Usual Reacher, breaks bones with scientific accuracy and speed. Utterly ruthless and barely a suggestion of sarcasm. Can't help thinking that if I was that good, I'd be sarcastic as hell. The Vegas villains seemed to be portrayed as if they were in a Cohen Brothers film. Stylish but stupid and incompetent. It made their outcomes fairly assured from the moment they were introduced. The ending tells us that the East Coast may be an eventful journey and personally I want to be on board. Jack Reacher is a character for our times. I've passed some time trying to work out who would play him on the big screen and the problem is there really isn't anyone who comes close. Russell Crowe? Too short and getting too old for the series (of films), but has the look. Making of the film would be fairly inexpensive as the action is real world, well, real Reacher world. Keep em' coming