The Enemy (Child novel)
2004 Hardcover edition
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| Author | Lee Child |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Jack Reacher |
| Genre | Thriller novel |
| Publisher | Bantam Press (UK), Delacorte Press (US) |
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Publication date
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11 May 2004 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 400 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 53215854 |
| 813/.54 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3553.H4838 E54 2004 |
| Preceded by | Persuader |
| Followed by | One Shot |
The prequel, The Enemy, is the eighth book in the Jack Reacher series written by Lee Child. It is narrated in the first person.
In the last hours of 1989 Army Major General Ken Kramer dies of a heart attack in a seedy North Carolina motel, apparently while in the company of a prostitute. Military Police Major Jack Reacher investigates and comes to the conclusion that the woman Kramer was with stole his briefcase.
Reacher and a female MP named Lieutenant Summer travel to Virginia to inform Mrs. Kramer of her husband's death. When they arrive at the Kramer home they find the house broken into and Mrs. Kramer murdered with a crowbar.
Reacher returns to the bar across the street from the motel in an attempt to identify the prostitute. His inquiry results in a parking lot fight with the bouncer, where the bouncer is severely injured. Afterwards, Reacher is told by the motel night clerk that he heard a military vehicle leaving after Kramer's death, and Reacher concludes that the woman Kramer was with is a female army officer. The book introduces General Vassell and Colonel Coomer, and later their errand boy, Major Marshall. It becomes clear that they are hiding something related to a printed agenda for a meeting that was in Kramer's briefcase.
Two soldiers named Carbone and Brubaker are murdered soon afterward. It turns out that Carbone filed a complaint against Reacher, his first in a sixteen-year career, for assaulting the bar owner. Brubaker was the CO of the Delta unit where Carbone had been assigned. This puts Reacher under a cloud of suspicion and the Delta squad gives him 7 days to prove his innocence. Reacher's new CO, Willard, also tells him that he is not to pursue the death of Carbone and that it was to be reported as an accident, but he tells the Delta squad's acting CO that he believes Reacher killed Carbone in retaliation for the complaint.
Reacher, in a talk with the Army Chief of Staff, learns that with the collapse of Soviet communism, the army at large is worried about its inevitable downsizing, and in particular that the different branches are engaged in a furious battle for supremacy.
Reacher concludes that Carbone and Kramer were lovers and he was the one that met Kramer and stole his briefcase after Kramer died from a heart attack. He also set up Reacher to believe the bouncer slapped the prostitute, so he would be able to report Reacher's actions and hopefully get him out of the investigation. Reacher then realizes that Vassell, Coomer and Marshall killed Carbone by sneaking Marshall onto the base. Reacher also works out that Marshall killed Mrs. Kramer and that Coomer, Vassell and Marshall were present when Brubaker was killed, with Marshall doing the actual shooting. The unique identity of the crowbars used to kill Carbone and Mrs. Kramer solve her case, and the investigation of the car finds Marshall's fingerprints as well as large quantities of Carbone's and Brubaker's blood in the trunk.
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