Die Trying (Jack Reacher #2)

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Chicago. Once again after the events of Killing Floor - Jack Reacher is in the wrong place at the wrong time. All he wanted was to help a woman on crutches with her dry cleaning but within minutes he's held at gunpoint, bundled into a van with her and driven across the country. He weighs fighting back and concludes that he would be able to get the better of the four men, but decides against it considering the pedestrian traffic and probable collateral damage.

In the van he realizes that the woman is FBI agent Holly Johnson, also daughter of the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, and goddaughter of the President. Despite being on crutches on account of a soccer injury she tells Reachers to remain passive and let her manage things. Meanwhile Holly wonders why Reacher didn't take an opportunity to escape, and begins to accept his active role when he kills her would-be rapist. So as to not arouse suspicion Reacher hides the body and once against restrains himself in the van. The FBI begin tracing Holly's whereabouts and assume Reacher is one of the kidnappers after viewing the CCTV footage; but Holly's mentor and Reacher's former commander Colonel Leon Garber insists Reacher is not part of the crime. A small team of trusted agents take up the investigation.

A few days laters Reacher and Holly arrive at their destination - a Montana mountain community of a extremist military organisation attempting to secede from the US. The leader of the militia - Beau Borken is a maniacal neo-Nazi, and plans to use Holly as leverage, and she is kept in an abandoned county courthouse with walls of dynamite. Die Trying is thick on action and conspiracy, not so much on plot. Reacher is taking on muscle here and gets a chance to show off his expert marksmanship and technical knowledge of guns and explosives.