Catherine Raynes: Exit Strategy and Gone Before Goodbye

Exit Strategy by Lee Child & Andrew Child  

Jack Reacher will make three stops today. Not all of them were planned for. 

First - a Baltimore coffee shop. A seat in the corner, facing the door. Black coffee, two refills, no messing about. A minor interruption from two of the customers, but nothing he can't deal with swiftly. As he leaves, a young guy brushes against him in the doorway. Instinctively, Reacher checks the pocket holding his cash and passport. There's no problem. Nothing is missing. 

Second - a store to buy a coat. Nothing fancy. Something he can ditch when he heads to warmer climes. Large enough to fit a man the size of a bank vault. As he pulls out his cash, he finds something new in his pocket. A handwritten note. A desperate plea for help. 

Third - wherever this bend in the road takes him. Impressed by the guy's technique and intrigued by the message, Reacher makes it his mission to find out more... 

  

Gone Before Goodbye by Harlan Coben & Reese Witherspoon  

Maggie McCabe is on the brink. A highly skilled and renowned army combat surgeon, she has always lived life at the edge. 

But now, after a devastating series of personal tragedies, Maggie is thrown a lifeline by a former colleague, an elite surgeon whose anonymous clientele demand the best care money can buy - as well as absolute discretion. 

Halfway across the globe, one of the world’s most mysterious men requires unconventional medical assistance. Desperate, and one of the few surgeons in the world skilled enough to take this job, Maggie enters his realm of unspeakable opulence and fulfils her end of the agreement. 

But when the patient suddenly disappears while still under her care, Maggie must become a fugitive herself – or she will be the next one who is . . . 

Gone Before Goodbye. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at be Two cracking books with four
big name authors this morning. Yeah, both of these are collabs.
Catherine Rains is our book reviewers. He's here with us
this morning, and kas one, we'll better kick off with
the latest Jack Reacher tell us about Exit Strategy by
Lee and Andrew Child.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
So this is the thirtieth in the Jack Creacher novels.
And in this Rich's in Baltimore and he's there for
a concert and it's a little bit colder, and he
decides that he needs a new coat, but of course,
being richer, he first needs coffee. So he's sitting in
the corner of a coffee shop watching the door and
there's some things going on, and you know, he noticed
a couple of people being ripped off by con artist

(00:50):
and he kind of a bit of a distraction and
he deals with that, and then as he's leaving, this
man that he later knows as a guy called Nathan
Gilmore brushes past him in the doorway and he Reacher
feels like he's been pickpocketed, but you know, it's pass
All everything else he needs is there, and actually later on.
When he's about to throw out this old coach, he
fhines this handwritten notion his pocket with you know, some

(01:11):
messages on it that is saying that life and danger
and could you know late night meeting spot. And Rachel thinks, well,
you should at least go and tell this guy that
you know, see who needs help and tell him that,
you know, why did he even know in his pocket?
And he's not the right guy. And so Richer scouts
out the meeting spot and he meets this guy, Nathan Gilmore,
and Gilmore proceeds to tell Richer this sad story. He

(01:34):
was in military intelligence, he had a gambling addiction, and
he's returned home and as he returned home, the stranger
offered to pay offers gambling debts and put him in
this job in a port administration in Baltimore, and an exchange,
Gilmore would feed us the information about shipments. And then
a cowork is killed in an accident, and Gilmour realizes
that actually things are going badly wrong. And this trail

(01:55):
leads to another guy and yeah, it's the usual Jack Reacher.
You know, wrong place, wrong time, that in his case
not always a bad thing. He's the type of hero,
you kind of one on your side and not on
the other side. And this is the This is typical
Jack Reacher, and it's a great read. Nice ye, exactly
as you would expect.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, but by book number thirty,
I don't think they're going to change the formula too much.
So that's an exit strategy by Lee and Andrew Child.
Next up a co lab between Harlan Coben and Reese
Witherspoon of All People Gone Before Goodbye.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
So this is a really interesting co lab. And in
this story, you met this woman, Maggie mckab and she's
a very skilled Army combat surgeon and she's always lived
life sort of on the edge where she could make
most impact and what she specializes in his plastic surgery.
But she can do anything. But in this particular point
in time that we meet her, her life's fallen apart.
Her husband's been murdered overseas, her mother passes, and her

(02:51):
partner in the medical and friend in the medical license
has gone missing. And so with all of the things
that she's dealing with, she ends up losing her medical
license when a surgery just goes awfully wrong and then
she's recruited by almost like this white night of professor,
so who was her mentor and medical skill comes to
her with this very unusual proposal that will make most

(03:13):
of her problems disappear. So next thing she knows is
she finds herself aboard these luxury private jets winging her
way to a location that she's not sure of, and
she's asked to perform plastic surgery in this elite world
where money can buy anything. And then you know, the
suspicion starts to raise why she there? Will she ever
get home? And you end up in various places around

(03:34):
the world, in Baltimore and Russia and Dubai and England,
and there's the corruption and elitism and greed and all
of those things taking center stage. And what was really
interesting is that when you're reading the stories, you get
these two authors, how they've got a very different style.
I mean, Covin's very thriller in suspense and Witherspoon's much

(03:54):
more emotionally focused narrative. And there's a lot going on
this book, and it's fast paced and lots of tension,
and that the plot is really addictive, and you find
yourself really wanting to know what making McCabe's going to
do next, and what's going to.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Happen, and do you reckon it is Reese Weatherspoon who's
actually been doing that, doing the work here. It is
a great storyteller, right, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yes, yeah, no it does because the narrative feels different
from a Carlum Coben novel, and it definitely feels like
it's much more of a female perspective. So yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
It's not Reese Wetherspoon.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
It feels like it was a female author anyway, but
I think it genuinely was her. Feels a little bit like,
you know, how she would be and how she would speak.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Of Okay, yeah, very good. So that's gone before Goodbye
by Harlan Coben and Reese Wetherspoon. Exit Strategy is the
new Jack Reacher book by Lee Child and Andrew Child.
Both of those books will be on the News Talks.
He'd be website for more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame.
Listen live to news Talks he'd be from nine am Saturday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.