ECHO BURNING

Jack Reacher fans are generally subject to continuous excitement and may be disappointed that Child's latest moves a little slowly at the beginning. But Dick Hill's solid performance holds the listener's interest until the action picks up. And it does. Ex-GI cop Reacher is traveling through heat-scorched Echo, Texas, when a "good-old-boy's" wife tries unsuccessfully to hire Reacher to kill her husband. When her husband is murdered and Reacher sets out to vindicate the jailed wife, he unmasks the killer, dispatches a hit team, and uncovers the perpetrators of a decade-old crime. Hill is at his very best as Reader duals with the three assassins during a desert thunderstorm. He also has a knack for portraying children (there's a petulant 6-year-old in this one) in a believable way. A.L.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 01]