One Shot

A sniper opens fire on a crowd in a heartland city, and within moments five people are dead. The police move fast and have a suspect in custody before the day is out. To them the case is closed. The man they have arrested disagrees, and he refuses to confess or explain. He says only that they have the wrong man, and that they should send for Jack Reacher.

Reacher, a former military investigator, is already on his way. He knows the accused from the army, where the man was a trained sniper with a record for hitting what he aimed at. A shooter like that would not have missed, and the details of the attack do not fit him. The more Reacher looks, the more the tidy police case falls apart.

He is joined by a young defense lawyer who has taken on the accused man's case, and together they begin closing in on someone who has stayed out of sight. Reacher recognizes that this opponent is no ordinary criminal. He has arrived in the heartland carrying his own dark past, and he is as cold and clever as Reacher is.

One Shot is the ninth Jack Reacher novel, a fast, tightly built thriller in which a simple-looking crime turns out to be anything but. Reacher's only real chance is to match his adversary's cunning and ruthlessness and beat him at his own game.