A sidewalk cafe encounter in New York City plunges Jack Reacher into one of his most challenging and thoroughly engrossing adventures to date. Acting out of "reflex and professional curiosity" (and the promise of a generous fee), Reacher agrees to help sinister ex-army officer Edward Lane, whose posse of six Special Forces veterans are even more ominous than he, track down his kidnapped daughter and trophy wife. Since the kidnapping of wife number one five years earlier ended in her death, Lane cautions Reacher that he will not brook police interference. On the trail of a vicious kidnapper, Reacher is beginning to realize that Edward Lane is hiding something dirty, something big. But Reacher also knows he's already in way too deep to stop now.