Book Club January 2026: Exit Strategy

Exit Strategy - Lee Child and Andrew Child

My children bought me this book for my birthday in December, so it seemed like a good place to start Book Club for 2026. The primary genre of this book is crime-thriller, but I'd almost consider it more an action-thriller. The basic plot is much the same as many Jack Reacher novels - Jack is travelling (this time to see a band) and he stumbles into a situation. Some bad guys are trying to run a con on some older people in the cafe where Jack is having coffee, but Reacher intervenes... and makes some enemies in the meantime. Then, in a parallel plot, a military contractor has a secret, gaurded room in the facility he has carved into a vacated limestone pit, and we know the room is bad, but we don't know why.

The town Reacher has found himself in is populated with a lot of bad characters, but they are only interconnected in that the big bad uses the small bad to set up people he needs to facilitate his plot. He is smuggling something into the port, and he needs people in place to make that happen. This is where one of the unique features of this book happens -- the people Reacher teams up with all turn out to be anti-heros in their own sense. For example, one guy has a gambling addiction that he reveals to his (corrupt) therapist. He owes one of the little bad guys money, and the therapist tells the truly bad guy about it so that instead of being beaten for non-payment, he is blackmailed into assisting with the smuggling. Reacher almost turns his back on the not-quite-clean 'victim' and leaves town, except there is a threat against his six year old nephew, and Reacher can't look away from that.

The other person Reacher ends up helping keeps killing off all the players in their investigation right before Reacher can talk to them. This person is introduced late in the story, and it turns out she is on the side of good. The killings were accidental, occurring in the course of her own investigations. Ultimately, they are on the same side of attempting to stop the smuggling.

Sometimes, I find Jack Reache books really intricate and well-develped. This one, for me, ultimately is a miss. There is so much foreshadowing about how evil the military contractor is, that when the particulars are revealed, I found it anti-climactic. I did start the book before Christmas, take a break for the holiday, and complete several days later, so it is possible that breaking the momentum the story was building factored in to my experience. I was realy enjoying the story until that point. The action starts of good. Reacher helping the older people who are being swindled felt like a strong plot in and of itself. As much as I enjoyed the action of the story, the plot elements of this story ultimately felt disconnected to me.

There are several things I like about Jack Reacher as a character.

1. He is a definite anti-hero. He has a moral code, but he does things his own way. Other people usually end up with broken bones in the process.

2. He is always the deadliest of them all. He is the machine behind the action of the story. He is the one who kills without conscience - but only when the ends justify the means according to his own ethics.

3. He is, inside and outside of the army, an investigator at core. He is always as deadly with his brain and is always thinking his way through the mystery every bit as much as he is fighting his way through. I like seeing him think and strategize.

4. He always gets the girl, even if only for a night.

In this book, it felt like much of that was lacking. The fact that he helped this guy who was maybe, possibly trying to rip off the CIA violated his own personal ethics. Sure, he had a reason, but still, that was a weakness in the story, I think. Also in this book, most of the killing and some of the fight scenes are done by others -- not Reacher. Made him superflous. Not only did he not get the girl, there was zero love interest. There wasn't even a female counterpoint until the final few chapters of the book, so that aspect was a non-starter. And finally, although there were multiple mentions of Reacher's brain twigging at him, there was no real mental aspect to this story. All the elements are so disconnected that it would be hard for Reacher to be ferretting them out. I'm pretty sure the author's were struggling to do so themselves.

Ultimately, despite this being the book club book for January, it only gets a 6.5 from me. It's only that high because I really did enjoy two-thirds of the book while the action was building. It just never really landed for me. As I said, that might be because I had to put it down for a bit, so I'd love to hear how you experience the story.

I will be reviewing a second book this month, just to start 2026 off with a bang. This past month I have been listening to the audiobook of Nobody's Girl, by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Stay tuned for the review of this incredibly timely true story.