A Jack Reacher travesty: The Sentinel, by Lee Child and Andrew Child, reviewed

So upsetting it would have been, for those of us who rate Lee Child’s Jack Reacher thrillers so highly, if handing them over to another author had made no discernible difference in quality. After all, we value Child as a writer, not as a production line. So here’s the good news: it makes all the difference. The Sentinel, the 25th Jack Reacher novel, is a travesty.

At 65, Child has finally carried out his long-held plan to retire. Andy Martin, his academic disciple, ended a second reverential study of his idol, With Child, by quoting Child saying to him: ‘Somebody else can do it for me… What about you?’, apparently in the hope it might really happen. Instead, Child has handed on the franchise to his younger brother, real name Andrew Grant, a much less successful thriller writer.

It is unclear how much input Lee has had in this supposedly jointly authored work.