I didn't expect THAT

I picked up Make Me by Lee Child from my stacks prior to heading to a doctor appointment because I was thisclose to finishing another book. I could either grab a new book to start or take two books to the appointment because I refuse to sit and wait without something to entertain me!

This is #20 in the Jack Reacher series, which I constantly read out of order. It's ok to do that with these books, really. Reacher starts out making a spur of the moment decision then gets all entangled in some seriously bizarre shit. I'm super glad I'm not Reacher. I'd hate to think, "This is an interesting town, I'll get off here" and then end up in....whatever the hell this was.  Side note: Mother's Rest IS an interesting town but geez oh pete, I was not prepared for that kind of interesting.

Reacher wants to know the history behind the name Mother's Rest, a spit of a town in the middle of nowhere. He gets off the train and is immediately accosted by Michelle Chang, a hot (of course) former FBI agent, who is in Mother's Rest looking for her partner, Keever. Keever has went missing and she's hoping he just went home for a bit and was coming back. Keever called her for backup then just disappeared. We know exactly what happened to Keever from the first page, but Chang has no idea.

Reacher is apparently bored so he agrees to stay and help Change figure out the mystery of the town. There's a group of townspeople who are keeping tabs on Reacher and Chang, including the one-eyed motel manager. They are harassed and finally, literally, ran out of town. But not before Reacher kicks dudes in the balls and the head repeatedly, because that's really what he does best, right? His body count isn't as high in this book as the last I read, but he did kill one man twice.

They engage with a science reporter, Ashley Westwood, whom Keever wanted to contact, but was not able to (seeing as how he was dead). Westwood wants the book rights if there is a story so he comes along for the ride in LA back to Mother's Rest.

Once they get with Westwood's contact about the Deep Web, things get dark, very dark. We find out what is happening in Mother's Rest but it's not enough to explain what they have already encountered. Back to Mother's Rest we go. I was trying to come up with all sorts of scenarios they would run into and I was so incredibly wrong on all of them.

I'm going to assume I'm just not a dark enough person to imagine these things and that's why the twist was a real twist that surprised me. So....good job, Child! *shudder*

Link: Child really doesn't like Reacher and is happy to hand the series over to his brother to take on