Finished The Hard Way by Lee Child. This is one of the books in Child’s long-running thriller series about ex-military policeman Jack Reacher.

One minute, Reacher is sitting in a coffee shop in New York City. The next, he’s talking to ex-army office Edward Lane and his group of mercenaries. Lane’s wife and stepdaughter have been kidnapped, and it turns out that Reacher saw one of the kidnappers driving away with the ransom money. Lane enlists Reacher to help him, but Reacher soon finds out that Lane isn’t exactly a nice guy — and that his previous wife was kidnapped and murdered in a manner that is eerily similar to the current situation …

I like this series a lot, and Child delivers another gripping story here. However, I don’t think this is one of the better books in the series, mainly because I was able to figure out most of the mystery before the end of the book. However, there were a couple of nice twists at the end that did surprise me.

Also, once again, I didn’t think that Reacher came off as all that likable in this book — he basically just walks all over the other characters. Several times, he confronts several of the mercenaries all at once — and not one of them takes him on. I found it a little unbelievable that Reacher could be that intimidating all the time, especially to a supposedly hard-core group of guys like this.

Still, Child’s books are always a slam-bang thrill ride right up until the very end. So thumbs up.

Up next: McKettricks of Texas: Austin by Linda Lael Miller.

Books in my TBR pile: About 20.