One Shot
Lee Child
 In a small Indiana city a lone gunman in a parking garage calmly fires into a rush hour crowd in a public plaza, committing a massacre of five random victims with six shots. The shooter leaves a perfect trail behind him for the police to quickly track him down. Evidence from the scene, of a shell case and a quarter bearing the same fingerprints, points clearly to James Barr, a former Army Infantry sniper. He's arrested but will only say two things to the police: "'They got the wrong guy," and "'Get Jack Reacher for me.'" Reacher, the former Army Military Police officer is 1500 miles away but he sees the news on CNN and gets on a bus to Indiana. Reacher has no job, no home, no car, and a shrinking savings account from his past military pay. Although Reacher has a nomadic existence, what he does have is a sharp moral clarity in a modern climate of moral ambiguity. Instead of clearing Barr, Reacher wants to assist the prosecution in convicting him. There are good reasons why Reacher is the last person Barr would want to see. When Reacher was an investigating MP years past, Barr had committed a killing spree similar to the Indiana shootout, murdering four people during the Gulf War in Kuwait City, but twisted military politics and a technicality let Barr walk free. Reacher swore he would track the sniper down if he ever tried it again. Reacher believes Barr is guilty but Barr's sister Rosemary is convinced of her brother's innocence and entreats lawyer Helen Rodin to defend her brother. Helen's father is the district attorney that will prosecute the case. When Reacher arrives in Indiana, Barr has been beaten so badly he can't remember anything about the day of the murders, leaving Reacher to form his own conclusions with the available evidence. The local NBC news reporter, Ann Yanni, is also looking for more information and Reacher is more than willing to include her in his investigation, in exchange for a guaranteed public expose on the Barr case. Ann also lets Reacher drive her Mustang convertible car while he is in Indiana. Reacher knows thirty yards, the parking garage distance, is point-blank range for a trained military sniper like Barr. Reacher also knows the shooter missed one shot on purpose, giving Reacher one shot at the truth. Reacher drives to Kentucky to the shooting range where the sniper practiced and learns some interesting facts from Gunny Samuel Cash, the former U.S. Marine who owns the shooting range, which make him doubt the guilty airtight case against Barr. During a long range shooting scene, with a target of 300 yards, Reacher uses his enhanced intelligence with advanced technical and military knowledge, slowing and counting his heartbeat while calculating wind, humidity, trajectory, speed, energy and force. Cash is unwilling to reveal information or his records to Reacher, but grudgingly agrees to talk if Reacher is able to hit the target with one shot. Reacher is a skilled marksman and beside winning the US Army Pistol Championship, served as a pistol instructor. and is the only non-Marine to win the Marine Corps 1000 Yard Invitational rifle competition, 10 years after Cash scraped third place, which Reacher refrains from mentioning. Reacher makes the shot and tactfully says it was due to Cash's weaponry. Cash responds to Reacher's spoken compliment and unspoken respect and shows Reacher 32 sheets of target paper from three years' worth of Barr's practice shootings at his range, every single sheet with dead-on maximum scores. After the visit to the shooting range, Reacher adds Cash's information to the case evidence and his weaponry knowledge. Helen and Rosemary sift through the clues in a riveting analysis and finally get Reacher to conclude that Barr is innocent, which means someone set up Barr as the sniper. Someone is also trying to get Reacher off the case, which seemed a slam-dunk but is falling apart. Reacher is teamed with Helen, the young defense lawyer working against her D.A. father with a prosecution team that has an explosive secret of its own. Like most of Reacher's life, the case is a complex battlefield, but Reacher is at his best during battles. Reacher gets closer to the unseen enemy pulling the strings, leading him to the real perpetrators, a Russian gang, masquerading as legitimate businessmen. The gang's eighty-year-old capo spent most of his life in the infamous Soviet Gulag and is known only as The Zec. Reacher outwits the mob guards in the Russian gang's fortress, efficiently and brutally dispatching five hoods before confronting the boss and forcing him to come clean on the whole scam and set-up.