Better Off Dead: Lee Child & Andrew Child

“Better Off Dead” is the 26th book in the Jack Reacher series and the second book that teams original author Lee Child writing with his brother, Andrew Child.

For me, this second book confirms that Reacher is better off with Lee Child only. Preferably, anyway.

Reacher is still Reacher. He “goes where he wants, when he wants,” as noted in the back cover blurb. The character remains the same: retired Army military police officer, criss-crossing America by hitch-hiking or by bus, with only the clothes on his back and the toothbrush in his pocket. He stumbles upon people and situations that benefit from his massive physical frame, his skills, moral compass and indomitable will.

So, the differences between one Child and two Childs are subtle.

The Child-Child books, so far, seem to reveal less about Reacher’s interior thoughts – though Lee Child’s intermittent use of Reacher as a narrator never made sense either for the tight-lipped former Army cop.

Supporting characters are a little less developed and a little more cardboard cutout. Hard to see why Reacher cares about helping these people if the reader doesn’t care for them.

The Child-Child books seem to provide some of the details seen in the popular “Reacher” Amazon Prime TV series. The Amazon Reacher is a blues music fan. The Lee Child Reacher rarely mentions the blues. The Child-Child Reacher is all about the blues.

All that said, Reacher is still Reacher, still.

To the reader who picks up a new Reacher book on a yearly basis, the Child-Child books likely remain thoroughly enjoyable reads. I’m coming to the end of reading a Reacher book roughly every month to six weeks since February 2022, so the differences seem to leap off the page.

In “Better Off Dead,” Reacher is looking to hitch a ride as he walks through the brutal heat of a desert. He finds a woman slumped over the steering wheel of a crashed Jeep. Reacher is immediately in an uncertain and dangerous situation.

He allies with the woman, who is an Army veteran and rogue FBI agent. She’s searching for her missing twin brother whom she believes is in danger.

Adventure ensues.

Again, “Better Off Dead” is very readable, very much Reacher. Arguably, the Child-Child books make Reacher more readable and more accessible to more readers. The stories are less dense and move at a faster pace, even though Reacher is a dense mass of humanity who famously does not move fast at all.

Darth Vader: Rise of the Schism Imperial

Had Marvel’s “Darth Vader” comics been around in the years between “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” in the 1980s, Vader’s move against the Emperor at the end of “Jedi” would have come as no surprise.

In writer Greg Pak’s riveting “Darth Vader” comic books, Vader and Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious aren’t only maneuvering against the light side of the Force but against each other.

In the comics, the Emperor is always “testing” Vader in situations that should kill his Sith apprentice and Vader regularly defies Palpatine by either plotting against him or at least surviving each test.

In the “Rise of the Schism Imperial” story arc (now collected in a trade paperback edition), a cabal within the Empire seeks to dethrone the Emperor and redirect the Empire’s goals. The big question: Can this group draft Vader into its treasonous plot to usurp the throne?

Pak, joined by artistic creators Adam Gorham and Salvador Larroca, develop the latest chapter in the Darth Vader saga. In real time, there was only three years between the movie releases of “Empire” and “Jedi,” this particular run of “Darth Vader” comics is at roughly four years … hopefully that time will continue being stretched for at least a few more years.