The book is the eleventh in the series, and Reacher has stubbornly refused to evolve as a functioning citizen. Anyway, he gets an SOS call from his former special investigations military police crew. Reacher reassembles the surviving unit to piece together why one of their team was found dead in the desert near LA.
As the mystery is slowly unraveled, Reacher, Neagley and two others get embroiled in a corrupt missile manufacturer, and a plot by a UK based terrorist to blow up targets across the US.
Like a typical Jack Reacher book, there are several instances where Reacher makes wild assumptions and guesses with very little base information, and these assumptions always turn out to be correct. For example, the size of a post office box a dead ex-teammate of his would have used, based solely on his knowledge of his profession as a private detective. There are several such instances in the book, which are eternally grating.
Intertwined with the story is a Reacher coming to the understanding that all the rest have moved on and assimilated into civilian life; as detectives, private investigators, security specialists and similar professions. Some are even married with children. Reacher muses wistfully on what might have been, if he had also set aside his long-standing misanthropy and actually worked at becoming a productive member of society. These interludes are probably the saving grace of the book.
On the whole, the book is just ho-hum, and does not rank even amongst the top ten Reacher books. Safely missable.