Make Me by Lee Child — Reviewed by Guy Portman
Lee Child’s alter ego Jack Reacher finds himself in Mother’s Rest, a dead end, small prairie town on the train line. Our protagonist is curious as to why the town got its name. At the local motel Reacher meets a former FBI agent turned private investigator called Michelle Chang. She is searching for her missing colleague, Keever. He volunteers to assist.
Reacher soon becomes convinced that the town’s aloof inhabitants are hiding a secret. In the motel he discovers a crumpled up piece of paper with a phone number, belonging to a Los Angeles based journalist, named Westwood.
When Chang and Reacher visit Keever’s home in Oklahoma City, they find it ransacked, his investigative notes missing. The journalist then introduces the pair to a computer hacker in Palo Alto. He reveals some disturbing information about the goings-on in Mother’s Rest. The plot gradually unravels, revealing itself at the abhorrent and dramatic finale.
Make Me is a stimulating thriller whose themes include the Deep Web. There are several action scenes, culminating in our ageless hero adroitly dismantling the opposition. The book’s sinister subject matter appealed to this reader. However, in his opinion there is an overreliance on scene-setting, excessive detailed technical analysis and several clichéd villains.
