A review in Library Journal said, "Reacher is humanized by both his mistakes...and his relationships with the fiftyish Pauling", while "Tension builds through plot twists to another riveting finish by Child".

[1] Publishers Weekly commended "the author's atmospheric descriptions [which] make Manhattan a leading player, with menace lurking at every intersection".

[2] In a downtown Manhattan coffee shop Jack Reacher watches a man unlock a Mercedes and drive away.

Lane offers Reacher payment for his eye-witness description of the guy who stole the car; hearing that Reacher is an ex-Army CID investigator, Lane offers to put him on the payroll at $25,000 a month to help find his wife Kate and as an afterthought, Kate's daughter Jade.

Pauling has a Pentagon contact who tells Reacher that Anne's murderer, Knight, and a second mercenary, Hobart had suffered terribly in prison camp.

Pauling and Reacher rush to warn Hobart and Dee Marie to flee, but it's too late, Lane and his men are outside.

Reacher demands the promised million from Lane in exchange for the address, but as he's describing the location he suddenly realizes Kate left New York of her own free will and she and Jade are at the Jackson farm; Taylor had rescued, not kidnapped, them.