Lee and Andrew Child, 2020, Random House, LLC 

This might be the worst Jack Reacher book I have read so far. The Sentinel is apparently a system designed to thwart attempts to subvert the election system in the U.S. Reacher gets involved in the plot when he is strolling through a small town in Tennessee and encounters an attempt to kidnap an individual on the street in broad daylight. Reacher decides to help and the plot begins to unfold.

There are several things I didn’t like about the book. First is that Reacher doesn’t seem to connect to any of the victims on a personal basis. In some of the previous novels, he definitely has some sort of personal connection, either with the place or some of the other characters. In this one, there is none.

There is also very little information about this system, the Sentinel. It is mentioned only in a few pages, and we never find out anything about it (how it works, how it is deployed, how it was developed, etc.). One would think that, if it’s so important to protect, we would at least know a bit about it.

Then, there is the plot. It involves corrupt police, the FBI, Nazis, Russians, and several additional non-important characters. It’s convoluted and difficult to know where it’s going at any time. And sometimes it’s not very interesting.

Finally, the writing. The Childs apparently think that short phrases (non-sentences) coming at the reader in rapid succession somehow add to the excitement and suspense. This may be true to some degree, but also degrades the quality of the writing. Coupled with the detailed descriptions of Reacher’s every move when he is fighting his opponents (which becomes very tiresome), the book loses a lot of its potential appeal for me.

If you want to kill some time, you can get through the book. If you want to read a good book, however, there are a lot of other alternatives out there.