Killing floor by Lee Child

Welcome to Margrave, Georgia—but don't get too attached to the townsfolk, who are either in on a giant conspiracy, or hurtling toward violent deaths, or both.

There's not much of a welcome for Jack Reacher, a casualty of the Army's peace dividend who's drifted into town idly looking for traces of a long dead black jazzman. Not only do the local cops arrest him for murder, but the chief of police turns eyewitness to place him on the scene, even though Reacher was getting on a bus in Tampa at the time. Two surprises follow: The murdered man wasn't the only victim, and he was Reacher's brother whom he hadn't seen in seven years. So Reacher, who so far hasn't had anything personal against the crooks who set him up for a weekend in the state pen at Warburton, clicks into overdrive.

Banking on the help of the only two people in Margrave he can trust—a Harvard-educated chief of detectives who hasn't been on the job long enough to be on the take, and a smart, scrappy officer who's taken him to her bed— he sets out methodically in his brother's footsteps, trying to figure out why his cellmate in Warburton, a panicky banker whose cell-phone number turned up in Joe's shoe, confessed to a murder he obviously didn't commit; trying to figure out why all the out-of-towners on Joe's list of recent contacts were as dead as he was; and trying to stop the local carnage or at least direct it in more positive ways. Though the testosterone flows as freely as printer's ink, Reacher is an unobtrusively sharp detective in his quieter moments—not that there are many of them to judge by.

Despite the crude, tough-naïf narration, debut novelist Child serves up a big, rangy plot, menace as palpable as a ticking bomb, and enough battered corpses to make an undertaker grin.

this was the first book by Lee Child.

The Painted Man by Peter Brett

A thoroughly enjoyable fantasy book. First in a trilogy and I can't wait for the follow up.

The novel follows three characters in their passage from childhood to maturity. They are inhabitants of a world plagued by the attacks of demons known as "corelings", which rise from the planet's core each night to feast upon humans. The ongoing attrition of these attacks have reduced humanity from an advanced state of technology, to a 'dark age'. The only defense against the corelings are magical runes or "wards" that can be drawn, painted, or inscribed to form protective barriers around human settlements. These are, however, fragile and prone to failure unless properly maintained.

As the novel progresses, the protagonists each embark upon their own "hero's journey" in an effort to save humanity.

In writing the tale, Brett was keen to move beyond a simple adventure story, to present a fantasy novel about fear and its impact. He was particularly interested in the effect of fear "causing some to freeze up and others to leap into action".

61 hours by Lee Child

A savage snowstorm and a tour bus crash land Reacher in the middle of South Dakota—unprepared. For the snow, that is. But he’s ready, as only he can be, to risk his life to protect a courageous witness. If she’s going to live long enough to testify, she needs his help. There's a killer headed straight for her and he'll be in town soon...or maybe he’s already there...

Gone tomorrow by Lee Child

Up close and personal. When Jack Reacher witnesses a suicide on a Manhattan subway, he knows that there is more than meets the eye. Soon he's in deep, trying to unearth a dark secret for which both the feds and Al-Queda are willing to kill to keep from being revealed. Even in a city of eight million, a lone wolf like Reacher tends to stand out, and before long he is being hunted from all sides—which is exactly what Reacher wants.

This was the first Lee Child bok that I read and I do find him an easy but gripping read.