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Description edit
Winter in South Dakota. Blowing snow, icy roads, a tired driver.
A bus skids and crashes and is stranded in the gathering storm.
There's a small town twenty miles away where a vulnerable witness is guarded round the clock. There's a strange stone building five miles further on, all... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters edit
- Jack Reacher: The main character. Ex-Military Police. Former commander of the 110th MP.
- Plato: South American drug godfather living in Mexico.
- Major Susan Turner: You might know the storyline!
- Janet Salter: former Professor of Library Science at Oxford; retired director of the Bodleian and Yale Libraries; now living in her hometown of Bolton, South Dakota; important witness to a major crime.
- Kim Peterson: Wife of Andrew Peterson.
- Chief Holland: Chief of Police of Bolton PD, South Dakota, doing his best to cope with the new challenges of his department, and biding his time until retirement.
- Jay Knox: Driver of the bus that crashed and stranded Reacher in Bolton, South Dakota, suspected of killing the lawyer
- Andrew Peterson: The Deputy Chief of Bolton PD, he was told to be the next Chief and he's a very smart and sharp cop.
- Mrs. Lowell: A former Miami police who came to Bolton to work. Reacher's first suspect.
- Amanda: Reacher's fictional name for the current commander of the 110th MP.
- Martinez: You might know storyline
- Caleb Carter: A prison guard
- The Lawyer: No real name, the contact man between the biker in prison and Plato
- Alice: Add a description of this character.
- Montgomery
- Kapler
Quotes edit
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“The lawyer nodded and the prisoner lapsed into a bovine stillness. Or equine, like a donkey in a field, infinitely patient. Time meant nothing to prisoners. Especially this one.”
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“Threatening behavior from a man that size would have been unseemly. Good manners from a man that size were charming.”
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“Travel light, travel far.”
Jack Reacher -
“A phobia would be a fear, of course, possibly of commitment or entanglement. A philia would imply love, possibly of freedom or opportunity. Although technically a philia shades toward issues of abnormal appetite, in your case possibly for secrecy. We must ask of people who fly beneath the radar, why, exactly? Is radar in itself unacceptable, or is the terrain down there uniquely attractive?”
Janet Salter -
“History tells us that asceticism has powerful attractions, but even so most ascetics owned clothes, at least. Shirts anyway, even if they were only made of hair.”
Janet Salter -
“To fill a small bag means selecting,and choosing, and evaluating. There's no logicial end to that process. Pretty soon I would have a big bag, and then two or three. A month later I'd be like the rest of you.”
Jack Reacher -
“I'm experiencing the chance to live out my principles. I believe that ordinary citizens must confront wickedness. But I believe in due process, too. I believe in an accused's right to a fair trial and I believe in his right to confront the witnesses against him. But it's easy to talk the talk, isn't it? Not everyone gets the opportunity to walk the walk. But now I am.”
Janet Salter -
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”
Jack Reacher -
“Never forgive, never forget. Do it once and do it right. You reap what you sow. Plans go to hell as soon as the first shot is fired. Protect and serve. Never off duty.”
Jack Reacher -
“I'm not afraid of death. Death's afraid of me.”
Jack Reacher -
“I just don't like people who put the world to wrongs.”
Jack Reacher -
“I was born as scared as anyone. Maybe more so. I lay awake crying with the best of them. But I got tired of it. I trained myself out of it. An act of will. I rerouted fear into aggression.”
Jack Reacher -
“To be born tall was to win life's lottery. Born small, two strikes against.”
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“Never forgive, never forget. Do it once and do it right. You reap what you sow. Plans go to hell as soon as the first shot is fired. Protect and serve. Never off duty.”
Highlighted by 113 Kindle customers -
Contents Other Books by this Author Title Page Dedication Chapter 1
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Nothing worthwhile was achieved without reflection and rumination. With reflection and rumination impulsive mistakes could be avoided, and bold strokes could be formulated.
Highlighted by 50 Kindle customers -
“Existential.” “Your disavowal of possessions is a little extreme. History tells us that asceticism
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philia? Or a consciously existential decision?” “I’m not sure I ever inquired that deeply.” “A phobia would be a fear, of course, possibly of commitment or entanglement. A philia would imply love, possibly of freedom or opportunity. Although technically a philia
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Someone had once said that of the two thousand pictures Monet had painted in his lifetime, six thousand were in the United States alone.
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sepulchral world. Outside the den windows the air was thick with heavy flakes. They were falling gently but relentlessly onto a fresh accumulation that was already close to a foot deep. There was no wind. Each one of the billions of flakes came parachuting straight down, sometimes wavering a little, sometimes spiraling, sometimes sidestepping an inch or two, each one disturbed
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patronymics littered his birth certificate. Like the way the soccer star Edson Arantes do Nascimento had called himself Pelé. Or the way another named Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite had called himself Kaká.
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ignominy and disbarment, and trial and conviction and imprisonment. Life
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disquisition on the state’s history. Explorers and traders, Lewis and Clark, the Sioux Nation, Fort Pierre, sodbusters and pioneers, the gold rush, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Custer, the Black Hills, Wounded Knee, the Dust Bowl, some guy called Brokaw she claimed had been on network TV. Five to eleven in the evening. Twenty-nine hours to go.
Highlighted by 11 Kindle customers
Organizations edit
- Military Police: The main character is an ex-member of this organization.
First Sentence edit
Five minutes to three in the afternoon.
Table of Contents edit
46 Chapters (No chapter titles)
Themes & Symbolism edit
- Prison: The town in South Dakota is home to a prison which is the largest employer in town. The prison is symbolic of the town itself which is remote and isolated from the rest of America. 700 miles to the nearest Major League Baseball team one town resident mentions. The town is also symbolic of Reacher's own isolation as he moves about America with no baggage or possessions.
Series & Lists edit
This is book 14 of 18 in Jack Reacher. (standard series)
Preceded by Gone Tomorrow, and followed by Worth Dying For.
This is book 13 of 18 in Jack Reacher (Reading Order). (standard series)
Preceded by Gone Tomorrow, and followed by Worth Dying For.
This is book 94 of 146 in Whitcoulls Top 100 (2011). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Dracula, and followed by Worth Dying For.
This book is in Janet Maslin's Top 10 Books of 2010. (authoritative list)
This is book 54 of 99 in NPR's Top 100 Killer Thriller. (community list)
Preceded by The Children of Men, and followed by Marathon Man.
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Delacorte
Country: New York, NY USA
Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: 9780385340588
Page Count: 383
Publisher: Delacorte
Country: New York, NY USA
Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: 9780385340588
Page Count: 383
Awards edit
- Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (2011)
- CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award (Finalist, 2010)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PS3553.H4838 A614
- Dewey: 813
Subjects edit
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