N­othing to Lose is Lee Child's twelfth Jack Reacher novel and it may be my favorite now along with Killing Floor, the first in the series and the one that made me a dedicated fan. If you haven't read any of Child's books, Reacher is a retired Army MP major who roams the U.S. with nothing but the clothes on his back, a travel tooth brush, an expired passport, and an ATM card. sometimes his Army past catches up with him, more often he happens into situations.

In Nothing to Lose, Reacher walks from the town of Hope, Colorado to Despair mostly because he likes the symmetry of the names. He stops for a cup of coffee - he drinks an astounding amount of coffee - and is rousted by four locals, thrown in jail, and escorted to the town limits and expelled as a vagrant. If the locals had let him get his coffee he would have drunk it and proceeded on his way. But their reaction to a stranger's presence seems way out of proportion and Reacher's curiosity is roused. When Jack gets curious, people are going to be sorry they didn't leave him alone.

Waiting for Jack at the town limits of Hope is a female deputy named Vaughan, sent to pick him up after a courtesy call from the Despair police department that Jack was about to be dropped off. Vaughan explains the town of Despair is owned by a preacher that the only industry is metal recycling plant operating under a government contract and the locals don't want able males coming to town looking for a job. That explanation doesn't satisfy Reacher and h­e begins probing. Vaughan becomes is somewhat reluctant partner. Child's female characters are strong women and he doesn't give Reacher chauvinistic characteristics. Women are partners in these stories.

Nothing to Lose has action but I like more the way Child has Reacher collect facts and work to assemble them into a logical conclusion. The same facts are available to the reader who could make the same conclusions are Reacher. There are two minor story lines at work here and they are nicely woven into the main question of the secret in Despair. One involves Vaughan and the other young men passing through Despair. I hate being cryptic but I don't want to spoil the story if you haven't read it. I'll leave it as saying that "scary" and "possible" are words I would use.

Child is British who decided to write about a former U.S. Army MP to see if he could. As someone who grew up a military brat and who spent four years in the Army himself, Child comes across as sympathetic and understanding about the people who choose to serve in uniform. This is something that resonates with me. There are several times in Nothing to Lose when Reacher talks about serving, particularly in the context of Iraq.

A fun aspect of Child's books are the facts he works in. He seems to like numbers and quantifying things. For example, the record for a fifty yard military low crawl is twenty seconds; the population of Despair "could assemble a human chain eighteen thousand feet long, which was six thousand yards, which was the circumference of a circle a fraction more than a mile in diameter."

You can read Nothing to Lose without having read the previous Reacher novels though I would recommend reading them in order. Child has built Reacher's character and motivations over the past twelve books. Many of the previous books have a high body count but this one doesn't and could be a good introduction to Reacher.