SEXY!
I'm not sure how to explain this other than to say that the loner guy with a toothbrush in his pocket is an unbelievably sexy character. Maybe it's because you know that you'll never have to do his laundry or wash his dishes. Maybe it's because you know he doesn't snore (the guy hardly sleeps!). Who knows. But this is a thrilling, fast, fantasy book. It's not something you read for a college lit. course. It's not something you'd even read for a book club. It's a secret, private, sexy thrill. You just read it. And ENJOY.

Jack Reacher Is A Believable Super Hero
This is my second Jack Reacher read. I think the author does a great job creating page turning excitement. Even though many of Reacher's exploits may seem over the top. They are achieved in a plausible way. Reacher's brother was a top level treasury department boss who was the top expert in money counterfitting. He came to a small town in Georgia to meet with a former bank executive who was having second thoughts about participating in the conspiracy. He was assassinated and brutally mutilated beyond recognition. Reacher, a former military officer and investigator, at the time, was basically a drifter. Coincidently, he decided to stop off in the town to find information about a long time favorite blues player of his who had been murdered years ago. The excitement begins and flows non stop until Reacher solves the case of his brothers murder as well as brings down the whole criminal operation which had corrupted much of the town. Top Notch.

The Stepford Town, the Good Old Boys, and the Loner
A body is found in the antiseptic Georgia town so police do the only thing logical -- arrest the man just off the bus in a rainstorm, there to find out about the blind black blues singer from 60 years ago.

There's the state prison, the rich young ruler, the Harvard-educated policeman, a couple of elderly barbers, and the new guy, who, incidentally, is a West-Point graduate recently of the MP's. And a woman cop.

Things unpeel onion-wise with questions about how the tiny town on the way to nowhere looks like a movie set, how the first and second men were killed, why an apparent suicide-by-hanging was let go at that, why the young guy had been going to work as usual, eighteen months after he'd been fired from his day job.

Break-neck action, slam-bang conclusion, and the only ending reasonably possible.

Right there with your Sam Spades and Lew Archer.

Simple Solution
Problem: One ex-military policeman decides to deal with a gang of vicious murdering criminals.

Answer: Kill them all.

An over-the-top mystery
Funny with too many bodies left around without apparent consequences. This story stretches credulity.