"Surprise tops nasty surprise when former MP Jack Reacher stalks a nemesis from the past... Wily plotting, swift pacing, mordant wit: Child is one skillful writer..." Kirkus Reviews
US
UK
The ultimate loner. An elite ex-military cop who left the service years ago, he's moved from place to place ... without family ... without possessions ... without commitments. And without fear. Which is good, because trouble—big, violent, complicated trouble—finds Reacher wherever he goes. And when trouble finds him, Reacher does not quit, not once, not ever. But some unfinished business has now found Reacher. And Reacher is a man who hates unfinished business. Ten years ago, a key investigation went sour and Francis Xavier Quinn got away with murder. Now a chance encounter outside Boston's Symphony Hall brings it all back. Now Reacher sees his one last shot. Some would call it vengeance. Some would call it redemption. Reacher would call it justice.
Bantam UK hardcover April 2003
Bantam UK paperback May 2004 0553813447 / 9780553815856
Delacorte hardcover May 2003
Dell mass-market paperback March 2004 0440241006 / 9780440241010
Delacorte ebook May 2003 0440333865
Brilliance Audio May 2003 Unabridged 1590864050 / Abridged 1590864085 / CD 1590866479
REVIEWS
Persuader is to noir roughly what Paradise Lost was to poetry. —Malcolm Gladwell
The secret to writing a great scene: Start in the middle of the action, then leave the reader hanging. Child has coupled that formula to a razor-sharp style and crafted seven perfect thrillers. One press clip boasted that he's 'The best thriller writer you're probably not reading—yet.' Time to start. Jack Reacher, his hero, is a former military policeman with a knack for landing in sticky situations. Think Die Hard without the smirk.
—Playboy
Protagonist ranks with best in genre. They don't come along every day, but once in a while, a new character surfaces as the protagonist in a series of novels to take his place alongside John MacDonald's Travis McGee and Robert Parker's Spenser. Lee Child's Jack Reacher is such a character, and best of all, he keeps getting better.
Reacher is a deeply principled rogue, for whom authority and rules are anathema. His character would almost be a stereotype except that Child has drawn him so precisely that he comes off scary, admirable and likable all at the time...Child has created an altogether satisfying and believable hero with stories that show him off to extraordinary effect and keep the reader turning pages into the wee hours. What more can be asked of an adventure novel?
—Winston-Salem Journal
I tried to wait until June to talk about Lee Child, a recently discovered (and now favorite) writer, because his newest thriller, Persuader, is due out just in time for Father's Day. But, since I find myself raving to everyone I run into about how wonderful Child is, and how much I'm enjoying reading about Jack Reacher, his Travis McGee-like hero (an ex-military policeman, now always on the road, who wanders into trouble wherever he goes), I find that I can't wait any longer to talk about his terrific books. Believe me, if you like fast-moving, high-octane thrillers, with appropriately chilling villains and a super tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold hero, and you demand fiction that's both well-written and impossible to put down, then Child is someone you don't want to miss. (Although the violence in these novels sometimes gets to me, it never quite seems over-the-top or gratuitous. However, I do have to remind myself frequently that no matter how high the odds are stacked against him, Reacher will live to solve another case. I just hope Child never gets the not-so-bright idea to doublecross his fans and kill Reacher off in some novel to come.) You don't need to read the books in any particular order, but while you're waiting for Persuader, you might want to try the first one (Killing Floor) or one of my favorites, Running Blind. The thing with Child is, he just gets better and better with every book (Persuader is the best so far)—and how many writers can you make that claim for?
—Nancy Pearl, KUOW Public Radio
The word thriller is too often used as a kind of catchall, encompassing a wildly diverse group of novels that aren't mysteries exactly but that do generate suspense. Rather than this kitchen-sink approach, why not limit the term to those rare novels that, in fact, deliver thrills, books fueled by a propulsive narrative that compels the reader forward, all systems on overdrive from beginning to end? Stephen Hunter's Bob the Nailer novels are the perfect example of this special breed, but Child's Jack Reacher series can match Bob stride for stride.... The best thrillers run on high-octane narrative fuel, but they are not plot driven. To generate real thrills, an author must put real people behind the wheel, and Child does exactly that. Bones crunch, wounds bleed, and hearts break in this galvanizing tale, but they never do so generically, and the mayhem, both physical and emotional, never feels gratuitous.
—Booklist, starred review
Surprise tops nasty surprise when former MP Jack Reacher stalks a nemesis from the past...Wily plotting, swift pacing, mordant wit: Child is one skillful writer.
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Child is a master of storytelling skills, not least the plot twist, and the opening chapter of this novel spins a doozy, as a high-octane, extremely violent action sequence sees Child hero Jack Reacher rescue a young man, 20-year-old Richard Beck, from an attempted kidnapping before the rug is pulled out from under the reader with the chapter's last line. The rest of the novel centers on the Beck family's isolated, heavily guarded estate on the Maine coast where Reacher takes Richard. Richard's father is suspected by Feds of being a major drug dealer and the kidnapper of another Fed, and also seems to have ties to a fiend who killed Reacher's lady 10 years before, someone Reacher thought he'd killed in turn, in a vengeance slaying. Tension runs high, then extremely high, as Reacher, ingratiating himself with the dealer and hired on as a bodyguard, pokes around the estate, looking for the kidnapped Fed and evading and/or disposing of in-house bad guys as they begin to suspect he's not who he seems. But then little in Child's novels is as it at first seems, and numerous further plot twists spark the story line. What makes the novel really zing, though, is Reacher's narration—a unique mix of the brainy and the brutal, of strategic thinking and explosive action, moral rumination and ruthless force, marking him as one of the most memorable heroes in contemporary thrillerdom. Any thriller fan who has yet to read Lee Child should start now.
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Loner and ex-military policeman, Jack Reacher, is back in another action-packed and gritty thriller that grips you by the throat from page one. Persuader has everything thriller fans could ask for and then some: a great lead, wonderful and often quirky secondaries, the nastiest villains, plenty of non-stop action and some unexpected surprises. Don't let Persuader slip you by and don't expect to put this book down until you turn the last page.
—Bookloons.com
With Jack Reacher, we have a true hero and like his landscape—they just don't make 'em like this anymore! Highly Recommended—a top ten definite for 2003 if not #1.
—Ali Karim for Shots—The Crime and Mystery Magazine
This book was so fast paced it made me dizzy. [L]ike driving 90 miles an hour at night with no lights, trusting that you will get where you are going, but not sure how... It is pure Reacher at his best, and if this is a taste of what is to come from Lee Child, I want more.
—Books 'N Bytes
In short, this is one hell of a thriller.
—S. Weinman, Rec.Arts.Mystery
Will grip readers from the first page and will further cement Lee Child's reputation as a world-class thriller writer.
—Crime Time
Very tense ... real urgency ... a scrupulously structured thriller ... a thrilling and reputable read.
—Literary Review
Persuader is Lee Child's best book since Killing Floor and it stacks up well against anything in the genre.
—David Montgomery, Mystery Ink
What a pleasure to return to Lee Child and his latest Jack Reacher novel, Persuader, which finds our drifting protagonist finally settling the score with a bad guy from Reacher's days in the military police. The first pages are intensely exciting and totally untrue—and boy, do we enjoy being fooled. An absolute heart-stopper from its opening scene to climactic finish.
—Mystery Lovers Bookshop
Life is messy. No one knows this better than Jack Reacher, ex-military policeman and solitary wanderer over the face of the earth. And never have these words had more ominous meaning than in Lee Child's brutally explosive new thriller, Persuader, the seventh installment in his series featuring perennial tough guy Jack Reacher. In a welcome return to the first person viewpoint and the grim fatalism of the first Reacher novel, Killing Floor, Child has masterfully executed a brooding tale of vengeance and long overdue retribution.
The author begins by pulling the wool over our eyes with a kidnapping gone spectacularly awry, an incident most writers would have dealt with in prologue. But Child is too canny to do the expected. Instead he jumps right in and immediately takes our breath away with an extravaganza of violence that is almost operatic in its larger than life scope. Asking us to trust him implicitly, Child even causes us to question our better judgment. And all this in just the first chapter!
Once under way, it is clear that Reacher has again been unofficially shanghaied by the forces that be. He's planted undercover by a beautiful and enticing (Is there any other kind?) female FBI agent who is frantically trying to save her career, fix a botched operation, and find another agent who has gone missing. But below that fairly standard surface, there are treacherous whirlpools churning.
In the meantime, we are introduced to one of the most criminally woebegone families it has ever been our misfortune to meet. Though victimized by weakness, corrupt circumstance, and a hideous human watchdog straight from the gates of hell, the Becks defy all but the barest rudiments of sympathy. Trapped inside a gloomy mansion on a cliff that might have sprung straight from the overwrought pages of gothic literature, this is a family worthy of Shakespearean assault. They almost beg to be struck down by fate. Once Jack Reacher enters their midst, he moves among them like a giant among pygmies. Never has Lee Child's taciturn hero been more brutally inclined or more heroically imposing.
It is always a treat to read a confident author working at the top of his game. Lee Child's enormous expertise is everywhere apparent here, especially in his deft use of flashback, a technique that never seems clumsy or forced. Through the use of beautifully paced glimpses of Reacher's past, we come to understand his true motivation and the cold rage that fuels it. Inserted throughout the body of the current-day story, Reacher's memories glide seamlessly, shedding light on an often claustrophobic tale of vengeance. We not only learn a bit more about his army days but a lot more of his need to avenge a truly monstrous crime.
An overdose of testosterone is not uncommon in a Lee Child tale, but we've come to expect that. Jack Reacher is a force of nature set loose to wreak havoc. He answers to no one but himself and Child has armed him with a complicated grasp of justice and a sense of righteousness that is absolute. Without much philosophizing or soul searching, he gets the job done and moves on.
If you haven't already discovered this terrific series, you're missing out on some of the finest story telling, not to mention one of the most intriguing characters, this genre has to offer. And if you've already made Jack Reacher's acquaintance, I don't have to tell you to rush right out and pick up Persuader. You're probably already ahead of me.
—Yvette Banek for Mystery Ink Online
