What this eighth Jack Reacher novel seems to be telling us is that you might not always know who your enemy will turn out to be. In his world of the military policeman, the army is a restless beast. When confronting a powerful enemy, its purposes and mission are clear and logical. But, at the time that the Berlin Wall was coming down, its biggest threat was change.

Change in the military is a greater challenge than a physical enemy. It becomes the source of an internal war as the Pentagon planners engage with the strategy of generals to maintain their commands and their leadership powers. When 2-star General Kramer is found dead of a heart attack in a tawdry hotel almost 300 miles from where he should be, it's not so much the tragedy of an untimely death that alerts Reacher's investigative senses, it's what's missing from the room.

For one, his lover, who apparently slid out from under the dead body. For another, the ubiquitous briefcase carried by every high level officer and what it might tell about why Kramer was here, in the first place. Reacher puts some pieces together and figures out that it contained an agenda for a strategy meeting that was to take place in utter secrecy by a plotting ring of Generals from the 110th Special Unit--Reacher's own. As the CO of the MP unit on his base, 6', 5" Reacher is virtually untouchable, empowered to arrest virtually anyone above or below him in grade.

His investigation is assisted by short and willowy lieutenant Summer, a tough beauty who questions his every move even as she's being won over by mental powers of analysis that are more impressive than his masterful physical skill in hand-to-hand combat. When they set out to interview Kramer's widow and find her dead, and as the investigation leads them on a deadly hunt that puts them in the crosshairs of a tringulating nest of enemies with different agendas, Reacher realizes that he's caught up in a whirlwind of competing interests that could affect his own life and career.

But that doesn't mean he's not a funny guy, along with his core toughness. One day, he's visited by Generals Vassell and Coomer, the dead general's senior staff. They're there to pull rank on Reacher in order to find out what he's discovered. "Tell us about the general," says Vassell as though it's a command. "He's dead," Reacher responds. "We're aware of that. We'd like to know the circumstances." "He had a heart attack." "Where?" "Inside his chest cavity."

Needless to say, the generals aren't going to get any farther with Reacher than he wants to take them.

Child puts the elements of a classic mystery together with maximum dramatic intrigue until all the clues that his investigator needs are in evidence. The solution comes when he has Reacher put himself into the mindset of the perpetrators and works out the motives and movements behind a set of false leads, fabricated alibies, his own framing, and a stream of misdirection. It's a tasty piece of fictional mindplay that raises interesting questions about the inner mechanics of the politico-military structure protecting us. Childs' convincing mastery of the military system makes for a chilling argument that emphasizes the reason why a certain kind of individual finds a home in the world of order and uniforms.