****A word of warning: The following review may contain spoilers. It's almost unavoidable, given the real subject matter, which Lee Child manages to keep hidden until about p. 312. Seriously, if you haven't read this book and actually want to in the near or distant future, I would advise you NOT to read this review, as I will almost certainly be giving away some vital plot points. Sorry. Move along...****
**** (Please don't mistake my brusque manner for rudeness. I am merely worried that some of you out there reading my reviews may want to someday read this novel, "Worth Dying For", the fifteenth book in the Jack Reacher series, and I wouldn't want to ruin the experience by letting slip important little twists such as the Navy SEAL who also happens to be the Russian spy---SHIT! Well, there I go... Never mind that one. It's not that important of a twist anyway, certainly not as important as the transvestite hooker who turns out to be Reacher's high school sweetheart AND inadvertently carrying the secret microfilm in her brassiere. Oops, I did it again... Sorry. But, anyway, DON'T read further in this review if you don't want to find out how the group of white supremacists accidentally unleash the Ebola virus in downtown Minneapolis and---ah, dammit...****
Okay, let me just apologize for all that. Reading a Jack Reacher novel---as I'm sure you fellow fans know and understand---gets me kind of wound up. Child's "lone wolf" protagonist is the prototypical Western hero, and "Worth Dying For" is Child's most obvious attempt at creating a contemporary Western action/adventure story. It's as brutal and violent as previous Reacher novels, but in this one Reacher almost surpasses his cold, hard-hearted Action Hero persona to become something darker and closer to the anti-hero that we all secretly know him to be. And yet, in this one especially, you root for him even more because the villains in this story deserve everything Reacher throws at them. Because behind all the pyrotechnics and action sequences, Child usually has something to say about a subject, and the subject matter in this book is more disturbing than anything in any previous Reacher book.
It deals with a topic that is in the news constantly and yet people still don't want to talk about it, or they feel extremely uncomfortable (and rightfully so) discussing it, but it's a problem that will sadly, and terrifyingly, may never go away because it is also a multi-billion dollar industry. People around the globe are getting insanely rich from this, while millions of lives are literally being ruined because of it. Reacher is the fantasy hero that saves the day in this story, but in real life, there aren't many Reachers that can step in and put a stop to these bad guys. Because these bad guys live all around us. They probably look like your neighbor. They most likely look that strange, quiet guy that lives down the street, the one that rarely leaves his house.
Some of you can already guess what I may be talking about. My feelings on the subject have been talked about at length in other reviews of other books. It's something I feel strongly about, mainly because I am a parent, and there is a parent in this book that undergoes a heart-wrenching experience, one that no parent should ever have to go through, and in the book, with the help of Jack Reacher, she is able to perform a kind of cathartic and liberating Biblical vengeance upon the wrong-doers that is at once unusually harsh and vicious but oh so satisfying.
Besides his usual amount of no-holds-barred action and suspense, Child includes an unusual amount of levity and humor in this one (at least, for a typical Reacher novel, which is generally humorless by nature), mainly because the subject matter is so unsettling and horrific that I'm sure Child felt the need to interject an occasional laugh or "breather". Unfortunately, some of the humor, admittedly, falls flat or completely fails in this one, because it simply doesn't feel appropriate, but I can totally understand and respect why Child makes the attempt. Even Shakespeare knew that sometimes comic relief just wasn't going to cut it.