*Have You Heard? * Audiobooks For Your Listening Pleasure* Night School by Lee Child

Night School (Jack Reacher, #21) by Lee Child
Also by this author: Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, #1), Persuader (Jack Reacher, #7), The Midnight Line (Jack Reacher, #22)
Published by Random House Audio, Delacorte Press on November 7th 2016
Genres: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
Pages: 369
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 0804178801
ASIN: B01JKG16V6
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It’s 1996, and Reacher is still in the army. In the morning they give him a medal, and in the afternoon they send him back to school. That night he’s off the grid. Out of sight, out of mind.
Two other men are in the classroom—an FBI agent and a CIA analyst. Each is a first-rate operator, each is fresh off a big win, and each is wondering what the hell they are doing there.
Then they find out: A Jihadist sleeper cell in Hamburg, Germany, has received an unexpected visitor—a Saudi courier, seeking safe haven while waiting to rendezvous with persons unknown. A CIA asset, undercover inside the cell, has overheard the courier whisper a chilling message: “The American wants a hundred million dollars.”
For what? And who from? Reacher and his two new friends are told to find the American. Reacher recruits the best soldier he has ever worked with: Sergeant Frances Neagley. Their mission heats up in more ways than one, while always keeping their eyes on the prize: If they don’t get their man, the world will suffer an epic act of terrorism.
From Langley to Hamburg, Jalalabad to Kiev, Night School moves like a bullet through a treacherous landscape of double crosses, faked identities, and new and terrible enemies, as Reacher maneuvers inside the game and outside the law.

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#JackReacher #Traitors #FBI #CIA #Jihad #DickHill @LeeChildReacher @PRHAudio

In Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher book, Night School, our man Jack goes straight from receiving a medal for meritorious service to the classroom or so he thinks, but the powers that be have something else in mind. I love Jack Reacher. He is a no-nonsense guy. He frequently says nothing. He doesn’t have stuff. He doesn’t have literal baggage and very little emotional baggage even though any other person in his place would have lots of emotional baggage. He doesn’t have money or bank accounts. He buys his clothes as he needs them, one outfit at a time. He throws out the old ones and puts on the new. He does the same with relationships. Any one of the women he’s collected throughout the course of the series is a worthy consort, but we know better than to become attached because Jack doesn’t.

I am thankful to the author or the publisher or whoever makes the decisions that locate the perfect narrator and then sticks with him or her. This is just my opinion, but in the audiobook world, the right narrator can actually carry a series even when the storyline is weak. Dick Hill is the voice of Jack Reacher. Sorry Tom Cruise, but Dick and I have been together a long time and you’re not Jack. Here’s one that may make you smile. Susan Ericksen, who narrates the In Death series, is Roarke for me . . . even though she’s a woman and he’s a man. Ditto for Davina Porter and Outlander’s Jamie Fraser. Then there’s Roy Dotrice for Game of Thrones, Jim Dale for Harry Potter, Simon Vance for The Millennium Series to name a few. Their voices define the stories in my head.

Readers and listeners who love Jason Bourne and spies and all that creepy espionage will love this book. It will actually scare you to death if you think too much about how conceivable the story is and how much goes on behind the scenes while we live our lives. The story takes place when Major Reacher is still in the military, so there is a somewhat different feel compared to his post-military adventures although he is the same kickass maverick…but wearing an Army uniform in this one.

There is a lot to be said for falling in love with a series. Loving a character or characters will make the story worth reading even if it’s not your favorite because you get to spend time with old friends, and let’s be honest. Are we all 5-star performers 100% of the time? Don’t we all have some 4-star days? Or even 3-star days? So for this book, I’m thinking 4 stars. It is as compelling and tightly written as all the others. It just wasn’t my day for espionage.