The Midnight Line

Chapter 1

Jack Reacher and Michelle Chang spent three days in Milwaukee. On the fourth morning she was gone. Reacher came back to the room with coffee and found a note on his pillow. He had seen such notes before. They all said the same thing. Either directly or indirectly. Chang s note was indirect. And more elegant than most. Not in terms of presentation. It was a ballpoint scrawl on motel notepaper gone wavy with damp. But elegant in terms of expression. She had used a simile, to explain and flatter and apologize all at once. She had written, You re like New York City. I love to visit, but I could never live there.

He did what he always did. He let her go. He understood. No apology required. He couldn t live anywhere. His whole life was a visit. Who could put up with that? He drank his coffee, and then hers, and took his toothbrush from the bathroom glass, and walked away, through a knot of streets, left and right, toward the bus depot. She would be in a taxi, he guessed. To the airport. She had a gold card and a cell phone.

At the depot he did what he always did. He bought a ticket for the first bus out, no matter where it was going. Which turned out to be an end-­of-­the-­line place way north and west, on the shore of Lake Superior. Fundamentally the wrong direction. Colder, not warmer. But rules were rules, so he climbed aboard. He sat and watched out the window. Wisconsin flashed by, its hayfields baled and stubbly, its pastures worn, its trees dark and heavy. It was the end of summer.

It was the end of several things. She had asked the usual questions. Which were really statements in disguise. She could understand a year. Absolutely. A kid who grew up on bases overseas, and was then deployed to bases overseas, with nothing in between except four years at West Point, which wasn t exactly known as a leisure-­heavy institution, then obviously such a guy was going to take a year to travel and see the sights before he settled down. Maybe two years.

Lee Child is the author of twenty-two New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher thrillers, thirteen of which have having reached the #1 position, and the complete Jack Reacher story collection, No Middle Name. All his novels have been optioned for major motion pictures including Jack Reacher (based on One Shot) and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Child lives in New York City.

Each year Lee Child comes up with another Reacher. Each year I lap it up. Love it . . . Here, there is something subversive as well as page-turning. . . . I don t know another author so skilled at making me turn the page, at putting me in the thick of it all. The Times
 
Reacher is the purest distillation of the white knight in contemporary mystery fiction. This novel is a tightly plotted ride with characters who will break your heart and linger after you close the book. Mystery Scene
 
Reacher [is] one of the most alluring and popular characters in contemporary fiction. . . . As always in a Child novel, pace is fast, twists and turns surprise, characters are well-developed, dialogue is exactly right, and the plot is very plausible. . . . Highly entertaining . . . This one is among the best [in the series]. It doesn t matter in what order you read them since each stands entirely on its own. The Washington Times
 
A timely, affecting, suspenseful and morally complex thriller. . . . One of the best thrillers I ve read this year. The Washington Post
 
Jack Reacher has become arguably the most iconic fictional hero we have. Men s Health 
 
Compelling and moving . . . bold and mysterious. Associated Press
 
This, Child s twenty-second book in the series, has heart to spare, and it proves the franchise has plenty of gas left in its tank. Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Compulsively readable. Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
[A] multifaceted novel about dealing with the unthinkable . . . It s automatic: Reacher gets off a bus, and Child lands on the New York Times bestseller list. Booklist
 
The book is very smart . . . [and] suggests something that has not been visible in the series previous entries: a creeping sadness in Reacher s wanderings that, set here among the vast and empty landscapes of Wyoming,