In the book when Reacher and Susan Turner were in Los Angeles, it reminded me of the SNL skit “The Californians.” Take, for instance, when Lee Child writes “Long Beach, Reacher said. We can rent a car. Straight shot up the 710. Then the 10. The mother’s affidavit was out of a law office in North Hollywood.” It’s silly, but Child’s description of Los Angeles entertained me as it was like he wanted to prove he was an honorary Angeleno.

Just like with my first Jack Reacher review, the book had too many characters to follow. I got lost keeping track of them, and the movie does a great job of condensing the plot down. However, this time around, “Never Go Back” touches on Reacher’s background with the 110th Military Police Special Investigations Unit, which was sorely missed in the movie. 

In mentioning Karla Dixon, Child efficiently describes her potential impact to the story if she were present: “He wished Karla Dixon was there. She could have taken one look at the paperwork and seen the truth in an instant.” It’s a minute detail, but as someone who is a lone wolf, this exposition of a character who isn’t part of the plot shows that Reacher does cherish the relationships he had previously. He’s a complicated character where he would rather be alone, but is not exempt from reminiscing about relationships he developed throughout his life. 

One character that I enjoyed in the book was Samantha, Reacher’s so-called daughter. This might be because I despised the movie character. Child gives Samantha the perfect amount of attention for the reader. In the movie, she was extremely annoying and given way too much screen time. It was a subplot I didn’t mind in the book, but the movie could do without it. 

I also liked how Child made it plausible for a nomad like Reacher to keep his muscular figure, saying that “he had worked the doors in nightclubs, and he had dug swimming pools, and stacked lumber, and demolished buildings, and picked apples, and loaded boxes into trucks, and he made it sound like those kinds of things had been his lifelong occupations.” I always thought in the back of my mind how a character like Reacher is supposed to be this Goliath of a man when he doesn’t even have a gym membership? Bringing in these details brought some clarity to the character. 

One aspect of the movie I liked better than the book is Cobie Smulders portrayal of Susan Turner. She was a definite badass. Child does his best to describe her as a strong, female leader in the book, but Smulders easily trumps her book counterpart. She did this film at the height of her popularity with “How I Met Your Mother”coming to an end and her roles in the Avengers movies, so she was the perfect actress for the role.