In Too Deep by Lee Child: A Solid But Slow Reacher Ride

Rating: 3/5 ⭐️

As a longtime Jack Reacher fan, I’ve been trudging along with our favorite drifter through 29 books now, and In Too Deep—the latest from Lee and Andrew Child—lands as a decent but not dazzling addition to the series. My last 5-star Reacher read was Blue Moon (book 24), and while this one doesn’t hit that high, it’s got an intriguing setup that kept me hooked, even if it dragged at times. With a 3/5 rating, here’s my take on why In Too Deep is a mixed bag of clever twists, missed opportunities, and a slightly subdued Reacher.

The story kicks off with a bang: Reacher wakes up handcuffed to a steel table, his right arm busted from a car crash, and chunks of his memory missing. It’s a fresh twist—our unstoppable hero is banged up and disoriented, which sets a gritty tone. He escapes with his usual smarts, tricking his captor, Darren Fletcher, into freeing one wrist, and from there, he’s on the hunt for answers. The culprits? A criminal crew in the Ozarks pulling scams on abandoned homes owned by wealthy Russians, stealing art and jewelry worth millions. It’s a cool premise, and the idea of Reacher piecing together events through an amnesia fog adds suspense, but the execution feels slower than I’d hoped.

What works is the crew’s dynamic—Fletcher, the leader; Zach Kane, his shady enforcer; Paris, a scheming hacker; and Ivan Vidic, a defector who ropes Reacher into their world. Reacher, playing along to unravel the truth, teams up with Jenny Knight, a suspended cop with a vendetta against Kane. The plot throws in an undercover FBI agent, Gibson, whose death in the crash Reacher survived keeps the stakes personal. There’s also a MacGuffin—a thumb drive with “national secrets” that’s supposed to threaten the country. It’s a neat way to tie in secondary characters like Knight and FBI agent Laura Devine, but honestly, the thumb drive feels like a letdown, hyped up without adding much weight to the story.

Where In Too Deep stumbles is its pacing and lack of a true villain. Reacher’s broken arm means less of his signature bone-crunching action, and the story crawls as he puzzles through his memory gaps. The audiobook’s fast narration didn’t help—sometimes I lost track of who was double-crossing who. Zach Kane should’ve been the big bad, but he doesn’t get enough face-time with Reacher to feel menacing. The twists, especially around the crew’s betrayals, are clever, but I missed the younger, sharper Reacher who’d take charge and mow down threats. By the end, everything ties up neatly—maybe too neatly—but it left me wanting more of that raw Reacher energy from books like Blue Moon.

Overall, In Too Deep is a solid read with a unique setup and some fun cat-and-mouse games, but it’s not peak Reacher. If you love the series for its twists and moral grit, it’s worth a listen. Just don’t expect the high-octane thrills of earlier days.