Worth Dying For opens in the middle of nowhere Nebraska (complete with a picture on the title page) with Reacher on his way to Virginia after surviving his ordeal in South Dakota. Outside a barn, a sniper waits for Reacher who is battered but not broken. 

Reacher checks into the only hotel in the area where he meets the inebriated country doctor. Reacher insists the doctor assist a patient who calls for help with a bloody nose resulting from an apparent domestic dispute. That is all the information Reacher requires to figuratively jump on his white horse and literally break the husband's (Seth Duncan) nose.

Seth, his father and two uncles own the trucking company which controls the forty farms in this Nebraska county and all of its residents. Reacher learns that Seth Duncan appeared mysteriously when he was eight years old and that 25 years previously, the Duncans were implicated in a scandal when an eight year old girl went missing. The State Police and all other law enforcement agencies involved found no evidence to implicate them.

 In typical Lee Child fashion, we are made aware of a shipment that is about to arrive from Canada to be delivered to the Duncans, then on to Vegas to three others, Rossi, Safir, and Mahmeini, all of whom become involved in the search for Reacher and the thirst for more profit.

Child provides bits and pieces and a possible connection with the missing child using the distinctive style of writing from which we could probably determine this author without seeing his name on the dust jacket. "He put his toast plate on his egg plate, and he put his oatmeal bowl on his toast plate, and he put his coffee mug in his oatmeal bowl, and he put his knife and fork and spoon in his pocket." Quintessential Lee Child.

There is a lot of violence in Worth Dying For and it is not for the meek. My only true criticism is that I was expecting a sequel and instead read a very, very good standalone novel.

--Jerry Solot