A glimpse of a West Point class ring in a pawn shop window sends Jack Reacher on his latest adventure in the 22nd entry in Child's (No Middle Name, 2017, etc.) series.On his latest travel to nowhere, Reacher, the peripatetic badass/guardian angel, steps off a bus at a rest stop and, while stretching his legs, glimpses a ring belonging to a female cadet. Knowing what it takes to earn that ring, especially for the women who still have to prove themselves to the military, Reacher buys it and, with nothing more than the initials inscribed inside to guide him, sets out to return to it to his fellow West Point alum. Of course it lands him in trouble, this time with a ring of opioid dealers, but at least he has a former FBI agent-turned-detective and the sister of the ring's owner for company. It's a good idea to give Reacher company since he plays well with others when they're on his side. How he plays badly with those who aren't is also part of the fun. So are the clever Sherlock-ian deductive skills that Reacher, a former Army investigator, puts to good use. Blessedly, there are none of the grisly moments that broke faith with readers in the series' last installment (Night School, 2016). And the book is very smart about illegal drugs, understanding that the face of the present crisis is largely white and rural and that the government's attempt to crack down on drugs ignores both the very real pleasure and the often necessary pain relief they bring to users, especially vets. The book makes a rather icky sentimental misstep toward the end. It does, however, suggest something that has not been visible in the series' previous entries: a creeping sadness in Reacher's wanderings that, set here among the vast and empty landscapes of Wyoming, resembles the peculiarly solitary loneliness of the classic American hero. This return to form is also a hint of new ground to be covered. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In Child's above-average 22nd Jack Reacher novel, the peripatetic soldier of fortune spies a woman's West Point ring in a pawn shop in Wisconsin and decides to return it to its original owner. His mission is interrupted by confrontations with a smug drug-peddling mob boss, tough-talking but glass-jawed homicidal bikers, and a couple of steely-eyed hit men. Assisting Reacher are the ring owner's worried sister, a tough private eye, and an ambitious policewoman. Keeping the same mildly cynical tone and unflagging pace he has used in previous series entries, reader Hill smoothly covers the moods of his heroes, from hard-boiled protagonist to sharp-witted investigator to empathic observer. He's equally effective in providing the mobster an arrogant tone; slimy, rural, bullying accents for the bikers; the policewoman's edgy air of anger and frustration; and a fearful, anxious flutter to the sister's voice. He also assists Child with a sincerity that adds gravitas to the novel's discussions of the opioid crisis. Child's audiobook fans will not want to miss this one. A Delacorte hardcover. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

The softer side of Jack Reacher? Huh? Well, everything's relative, but this time out Reacher does far less head-butting than usual, and the action is scaled down several notches, too. It starts with the former MP turned off-the-grid wanderer strolling through a Wisconsin town comfort break on his bus to nowhere when he spots a ring in a pawn-shop window not just any ring but a West Point class ring. West Pointers don't pawn class rings, so, naturally, Reacher wants to find out what happened. His attempts to trace the ring land him in the middle of an elaborate opioid-distribution operation originating in, of all places, a laundromat in South Dakota. Reacher tracks the ring's owner with relative ease, but that's where the trouble starts. Not so much with bad guys though there are some of those but with an army major desperately in need of help. Showing his sensitive side and his usual shrewd ability to figure stuff out, Reacher proves the man for the job. Not your usual Reacher fare God help us, we crave more head-banging but a very good, multifaceted novel about dealing with the unthinkable. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: It's automatic: Reacher gets off a bus, and Child lands on the NYT best-seller list.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2017 Booklist

In Child's latest Jack Reacher book (after Night School), his protagonist rambles into a Wisconsin pawnshop and notices a woman's 2005 West Point graduation ring. Knowing the effort a female cadet needed to earn the ring, he wonders: What motivated her to sell it? Reacher buys the ring, and after reading the initials inscribed inside, sets out to find his fellow alum. He quickly learns her name, Rose Sanderson; however, understanding her accomplishments requires more time. Along the way to the Wyoming wilderness and with the assistance of a former FBI agent and Rose's sister, he encounters musclemen, swindlers, bikers, and crooked cops who control a vast, illegal drug enterprise protecting opioid dealers and abusers as well as vets. Reacher also learns about the pains, sorrows, and fears Sanderson internalized while on duty in Iran and Afghanistan-and the residual effects she manages back home. Child places the present opioid crisis in context, which may help readers better understand drug use, especially among vets. VERDICT Child does a stellar job this time by not following his customary formula; his usually stoic hero who rarely displays softness and compassion is hit hard emotionally by this case. [See Prepub Alert, 5/15/17.]-Jerry P. Miller. Cambridge, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

harry bosch is a one-of-a-kind hero who started out pretty wild when he returned from Vietnam to become a cop, but over the years he's developed into someone you want to ride with. Michael Connelly's two kinds of TRUTH (Little, Brown, $29) picks up the former homicide detective three years after he was forced into retirement from the Los Angeles Police Department. Since then, he's been doing volunteer work on cold cases for the San Fernando force, working out of an office in the onetime drunk tank of the county jail. ("Sometimes I think I can still smell the puke.") The first plotline presents itself when Bosch opens the unsolved case of Esmerelda Tavares, who supposedly walked out of her house 15 years earlier, leaving her sleeping baby behind. Up next is something that spells real trouble for the detective. The L.A.P.D.'s Conviction Integrity Unit comes calling to challenge him on behalf of Preston Borders, a serial murderer he put away back in 1988. Using new DNA tests, a review of the evidence indicates that another man, a rapist who has since died, was the real killer and Borders is about to be set free. (The matter is eventually resolved in tense courtroom scenes featuring Mickey Haller, Bosch's half brother and an ace litigator.) The third and most disturbing case in this jam-packed narrative is as ugly as today's headlines, the double murder of father-andson pharmacists that opens up an investigation into a newfangled twist on the prescription drugs racket. (With "55,000 dead and counting," Harry is told, this is "the growth industry of this country.") It seems that international racketeers have an elaborate system for moving drugs, enslaving homeless addicts who need to feed their habit. Bosch does great work undercover as a strung-out oxycodone user, although he nearly gets himself killed in a spectacular way. Connelly's cop has always been a tough guy, but here he reveals a compassionate side. He's haunted by that abandoned baby. He keeps replaying his first sight of the father-and-son pharmacists. And when he finds himself among the oxy addicts, he feels uncomfortably close to his fellow man. DESPITE THE FALSE IMPRESSION left by two misbegotten movies, Jack Reacher is a big guy, so big that someone calls him "Bigfoot." Lee Child makes that clear in THE MIDNIGHT LINE (Delacorte, $28.99), which puts Reacher just where we want him - on an endless road trip, hitching rides and serving as "human amphetamine" for tired truckers by keeping them awake. (Standing sideways with one foot in the traffic lane is supposed to disguise some of that 6-foot-5-inch, 250-pound bulk.) Reacher is headed nowhere when he stops at the window of a pawnshop "on the sad side of a small town." On impulse, he buys a handsome ring, obviously made for a woman, engraved with "West Point" and "2005." "I know how hard she worked for this," he tells the shop owner. "So now I'm wondering what kind of unlucky circumstance made her give it up." Honor bound, Child's road warrior marches into a dirty criminal enterprise that preys on wounded veterans, which saddens Reacher and makes him very, very angry. IF YOU CAN pick up CRAZY LIKE A FOX (Ballantine, $27) and recognize the voices of Comet, a wise old gray fox; Dasher, a hound at the top of his game; and Golliwog, a snippy calico cat, you qualify as a member of the pack that surrounds Sister Jane Arnold, Master of Jefferson Hunt and the sleuth in Rita Mae Brown's enchanting novels set in the Virginia horse country. Many of the human characters are rich and social, some with "new money" and others with roots in the old Southern aristocracy. They keep horses and live in houses "filled with history, murders, fire, the severing of family ties, and neverending stories of ghosts." Sure enough, on a visit to the Museum of Hounds and Hunting, Sister thinks she sees the ghostly figure of Wesley Carruthers stealing a valuable old hunting horn, and the evidence is right there on her friend's cellphone. That's just the kind of story that adds to the charm of Brown's whimsical mysteries, with their thrilling hunts and intelligent animals. THE GREAT SWEDISH author Henning Mankell died in 2015, leaving one last, gutwrenching novel behind. AFTER THE FIRE (Vintage, paper, $16.95), translated by Marlaine Delargy, is that novel. Fans of Kurt Wallander may be disappointed since this book doesn't feature Mankell's towering detective, who solved his last case in 2011 in "The Troubled Man." Here Mankell's narrator is Fredrik Welin, and he's nothing like Wallander. A former surgeon, now 70 years old, Welin abandoned civilized society in shame many years earlier and lives by himself on a remote island. "I couldn't for the life of me understand why I should stop communicating with old friends just because they were dead," he says, explaining why he doesn't exactly feel isolated. When someone sets his house on fire, the police are as baffled as he is, eventually concluding that Welin set the blaze himself. To clear his name and salvage something of his old life, this reclusive man must return to the outside world - but not before Mankell scalds us with his searing thoughts about being old and living alone. ? Marilyn STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.