By means of an elaborately orchestrated rescue of Richard, Zachary Beck’s son, Reacher gets into the well-guarded Beck family grounds near Portland, Maine. He has to finish his mission in a few short days because the subterfuge cannot hold up for long. Reacher soon realizes that more is going on than the DEA knows. He has the chance to exact vengeance for a ten-year-old crime.

This is the seventh in the Jack Reacher series of thrillers. By now, the pattern is set-Reacher, the consummate loner, is wandering around the U.S. when he stumbles on major wrongdoing and coolly brings retribution to the bad guys. Tinkering with a successful formula is risky, and there’s a significant shift in technique in Persuader. Since Die Trying, the first Jack Reacher book, all previous books have been written in the third person point of view. In Persuader, Reacher is the first person narrator. Former English majors notice these things.

With a third person point of view, there’s always a certain distance between the reader and the character. The reader may know what the character is doing and thinking but isn’t looking at everyone and everything through his eyes, isn’t experiencing it along with the character. That distance is breached with first person point of view.

I’m ambivalent about this change. Reacher is a protagonist who has intrigued me since the first book, Killing Floor, was published; he’s a natural leader, calculating and methodical, capable of amazing physical feats. Bad guys who run up against him may as well turn themselves in and hope for a good plea bargain. On the other hand, discovering he can kill so dispassionately and remorselessly creates some uneasiness. When Reacher kills - he’s a one-man commando team with a multitude of killing techniques described in graphic detail - he seems little different from the bad guys he’s battling. There are some real baddies in Persuader - Paulie, a steroid-enhanced monolith is particularly repulsive - but the moral line between them and Reacher blurs.

The book begins with a really dynamite action scene - probably the best in the whole book - that I’ve deliberately merely mentioned. It’s worth going along for the ride without any prior knowledge. The action comes fast and furiously - this is a fast-paced story with only a little sagging in the middle. Furthermore, as is usual in a Jack Reacher thriller, there are unexpected plot turns and twists along the way to ultimate victory.

I can recommend Persuader for the intricate plotting and vivid action, but there’s a level of discomfort engendered by the change in point of view that prevents me from giving a recommended rating to the book. I will hope the eighth Jack Reacher book will see a return to the third person point of view. Without a doubt, I’ll be reading that one and others to follow.

--Lesley Dunlap