In 61 HOURS Jack Reacher innocently steps off his never-ending, meandering path smack into the type of disaster only Reacher can solve. The fourteenth novel in the Jack Reacher series is as twisting and suspenseful as every previous story. In tried and true Lee Child style, Child spends the first half of the novel digging Reacher into the deepest hole possible and then the second half letting Reacher logically and physically scramble his way out.

Instead of searching for the perfect cup of coffee, Reacher is sleeping on a tour bus crossing South Dakota in a deadly blizzard when a brush of fate slams the bus into a ditch and lands him in a small town with a big problem. A biker gang has settled outside of town and is selling meth. A retired librarian is the star eyewitness to busting up the gang and is under watch 24/7 by the local police who expect a big gun to come to town to take out the witness. But the police are under orders to cover the nearby prison if the prison siren goes off, leaving their storybook grandma witness unprotected.

Know anyone with previous bodyguard experience? Or Secret Service experience? Or FBI experience? Or can dig swimming pools by hand? Perhaps lacking in social skills with fists as big as hams?

Child’s distinctive voice is spare yet nails the key details that create rich scenes with a minimum of words that consistently place his novels on The New York Times top ten lists. He wields South Dakota weather as a deadly secondary character. The freezing temperature combined with wind chill is ominous every time a person steps outside. I found it more threatening to Reacher’s life than the Mexican drug lord who holds a Heckler &Koch MP5 to Reacher’s face. Of course Reacher evens those odds with a flashlight, brains, and brute strength.

Reminiscent of Bill Bixby on TV as the homeless Incredible Hulk, in each novel Reacher steps up when strangers need his unusual talents and then he moves on, leaving me to picture lonely Bill Bixby trudging down the road at the end of each TV episode, the poignant theme song playing in my head. But that is not the way 61 HOURS ends. I won’t give spoilers, but I will say my jaw dropped at the end of this book. Fans will call 61 HOURS one of the most surprising books of 2010.

61 HOURS will be published in the US on May 18, 2010. Yep, I got an advance reader’s copy and will consider large monetary bribes for a peek at it. If you want to pay steep shipping fees to get your hands on an early copy, the book will be available in Australia on March 10th and in the UK on March 18th. Lee Child will be the featured author of the month on TheNovelBlog.com in May.