Die Trying

Die Trying is a thriller by the British writer Lee Child, published in 1998. It is the second of his novels about Jack Reacher, a former military policeman who travels the United States with no fixed address.

The book opens with an accident of timing. Reacher is in the wrong place and offers to help a stranger, and the pair of them are taken by three men who clearly had a plan and now have an extra hostage. The woman is called Holly Johnson, and she is an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

What neither she nor Reacher tells the men holding them is that Holly is the daughter of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The search for her therefore involves the Bureau, the army and a general who has known Reacher for years and who refuses to accept the explanation that the security footage appears to offer. The novel alternates between the journey the captives are taking and the hunt being organised behind them, and the place they are being taken to is more dangerous than the men who took them understand.