Book Review: The Secret by Lee Child & Andrew Child

In reviewing brothers Lee & Andrew Child’s The Secret—the series’ twenty-ninth entry, and the brothers’ fourth collaboration—I should probably reveal a (shameful) secret of my own: I’ve never actually read a Reacher book before. Sure, I’ve read about Reacher (Andy Martin’s Reacher Said Nothing) and own Lee Child’s short work on the myth of (hu)man, The Hero. I also know that Tom Cruise played the larger-than-life character to smaller than expected box office returns and that Alan Ritchson currently embodies Reacher in a well-received TV series. But as for the books themselves? They’re largely a mystery to me.

The Secret opens in 1992. Sixty-two-year-old Keith Bridgeman awakens in a hospital room, where he’s spent nearly a month recovering from a massive heart attack that should have killed him. But his convalescence is interrupted by the appearance of two female interlopers; they’ve got a list of six names—all somehow connected to activities of December ‘69—and demand a seventh (which Bridgeman insists he doesn’t know). The outcome, however, is clear: cooperative or not, Bridgeman is a dead man. Indeed, his miraculous survival soon goes out the twelfth-floor window along with the rest of him. His will not be the last assisted death.

Meanwhile, ex-Army Military Police Officer Jack Reacher is managing the fallout from some undefined career misstep when summoned by the Secretary of Defense. He has no choice but to answer the call of duty, joining a task force set up to investigate the aforementioned string of deaths (which have been staged to look like accidents or suicides). This small but elite group also includes three similarly disenfranchised members. A loner by nature, Reacher must work within this pairing (and beyond it) to reconcile past events with present crimes. Still, he can’t help but suspect they’ve been recruited as ready-made scapegoats should the inquiry fail—which seems increasingly likely as the body count grows.

The Childs employ a roaming third-person narration that includes Reacher, the perpetrators, and their victims—a chain of individuals that reaches all the way to the Pentagon. This not only keeps the pacing and placement moving but highlights the clever, cunning nature of the killers, who defy expectation to impressive effect. Per usual, the visceral (and often violent) action is offset by moments of cerebral contemplation; while Reacher may not be a man of words, he makes them count when they come—and often amusingly so. Such levity is also incorporated through the use of then-cutting-edge technology such as fax machines and pagers (which endlessly frustrate Reacher), which firmly grounds the story in its time period while allowing readers to wax nostalgic.

The Secret seems an ideal entry point into this venerable series—but should also satisfy Reacher’s longtime legion of devotees. The plot contains a multitude of hooks and stands alone nicely while teasing bits of backstory that might entice newbies to check out earlier works (without unduly confusing them). And Reacher himself is a formidable combination of brains and brawn who uses all of his faculties to deliver justice as he deems appropriate. It’s really no secret, then, why these books continue to demand attention and acclaim nearly three decades after first delighting readers.