Bad Luck And Trouble by Lee Child (Bantam Press, £14.99).

Lee Child, who once lived at Kirkby Lonsdale, but who is now one of America's leading thriller writers, has penned his eleventh novel featuring ex-military investigator Jack Reacher.

Reacher is a bear of a man with a keen brain and a get things done' line of thinking. He is rootless - apart from his toothbrush and the clothes on his back, his only other possession is an ID card, the consequence of increased USA national security, post 9/11.

This fast-moving, hard-bitten novel find Reacher contacted by one his old team of Army special investigators. One of them has shown up dead in the Californian desert - apparently thrown out of a helicopter hovering at 3,000 feet - and six of his other buddies are missing.

There are some great set pieces - such as the scene in a busy post office when Reacher and a colleague work together to break into numerous safe boxes, despite the presence of other customers; and the lightning, two-minute raid on the offices of a military contractor, where every seconds counts.

As Reacher and some of his team try to get to the bottom of who seems to be targeting them, there is plenty of violence - the team certainly doesn't pull any punches when they or their friends are threatened.

The members of Reacher's team are a bit too similar for my liking - all are tough, uncompromising, totally sure of the rightness of their actions and given to terse, no-words-wasted dialogue.

But California and the burning heat and artificial glitz of Las Vegas are vividly evoked and there are enough twists and turns along the way to keep you reading.