Personal (novel)

Personal is the nineteenth book in the Jack Reacher series written by Lee Child. The novel was published on 28 August 2014 in the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland, and on 2 September 2014 in the United States and Canada. The plot of the book revolves around Reacher's pursuit of a sniper who has attempted to assassinate the President of France. This book is written in the first person.

Synopsis
Someone has taken a shot at the president of France in Paris. The bullet was American-made. The distance between the gunman and the target was exceptional. How many snipers can shoot from three-quarters of a mile with total confidence? Very few, but John Kott—an elite American marksman gone bad—is one of them. And after fifteen years in prison, he's out, unaccounted for, and likely drawing a bead on a G8 summit packed with enough world leaders to tempt any assassin.

If anyone can stop Kott, it's the man who beat him before: retired Military Police investigator Jack Reacher. And though he'd rather work alone, Reacher is teamed with Casey Nice, a rookie analyst who keeps her cool with Zoloft. But they're facing a rough road, full of ruthless mobsters, Serbian thugs, close calls, double-crosses—and no backup if they're caught. All the while Reacher can't stop thinking about Dominique Kohl, a young subordinate he once failed to save when he sent her to arrest a suspect. She was killed, and he swears it won't happen this time.

A powerful General Tom O'Day sends him undercover to Paris to discover who's behind the assassination attempt, and to save the upcoming G8 meeting which is going to be held in London. Reacher finds out that a dangerous gang using snipers – among whom there's Kott, arguably – has actually got a base in London, namely in Chigwell, where Charlie White, the aging boss of the "Romford Boys", controls rackets in the east of London, is doing business with Serbian gangsters in the west of the city, and aims now to threaten the G8.

Reacher, together with Casey Nice, manages to approach the house where Kott is being quartered, a place owned by one of White's associates, a giant called Joseph (Little Joey) Green. On the way, Reacher confronts and kills Joey, then enters the house and kills Kott, too. He is then flown back to the States to meet O'Day, the general who proposed the mission to him, not to thank him, but to unmask him.

Kott, White and Green were criminals, but they were not threatening the G8. O'Day wanted to use Kott simply to become more powerful politically. He had sold Reacher to him in advance. Whether the winner would be Kott or Reacher, he could have pretended to have saved the world. Reacher leaves him alone, and orders him not to say a word or he would raise a scandal and ruin him. He leaves a pistol on O'Day's desk. A short time later, after he leaves town, he reads that O'Day has killed himself.

Reception
Personal topped The New York Times Best Seller list of combined print and e-book fiction books for the week of 21 September 2014.

It won the 2014 RBA Prize for Crime Writing, a Spanish literary award said to be the world's most lucrative crime fiction prize at €125,000.