Lee Child's Past Tense

The bowstring thumped, the arrow hissed, and Shorty screamed and went down like he had fallen through a trap door.
--Lee Child, Past Tense (Delacorte, 2018).

Some of the strengths of Child's past Jack Reacher novels remain in Past Tense, particularly the character of Jack Reacher, always ready to help the downtrodden, and the detailed use of location as Reacher travels about the country.  In this novel Reacher is researching his childhood in New Hampshire when he stumbles across a group that kidnaps tourists and lets other men hunt them, for a price. The plot is more or less borrowed from Richard Connell's 1924 story that was made into the pretty good movie, The Most Dangerous Game, by Irving Pichel and Ernst Schoedsack, in 1932 and remade a number of times.

Kidnap victims Canadian tourists Shorty and Patty are vivid characters, as are some of the denizens of small town New Hampshire, though Child has the annoying habit of keeping information from us until late in the novel, turning suspense into predictable "surprise," something all-too-common among mystery and thriller writers.  I have the feeling that Child is spinning his wheels here, even the relationship with cop Brenda Amos doesn't suggest the possibility of it leading anywhere, as it does in other Reacher novels (see my posts of 12/5/17, 1/9/17, 11/10/15, 10/15/14).