Past Tense (Jack Reacher, #23)

Past Tense by Lee Child
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Reacher is headed to San Diego but decides to stop in Laconia, New Hampshire to visit his Father's birthplace. First he learns that Stan didn't actually live in Laconia but in a small mill town (Ryantown) outside the city limits and that Stan was the boy who ran away from a fight with the town bully. His cousin (together they were known as the bird watching boys) was the one who beat him up. No one seems to know his name or where he came from.

Then he learns the bird watching boys (Stan and William Reacher) wrote a paper for their bird watching club and he decides to take a gander at it when he discovers it's available at the town library. The professor who told him about the paper also insist Stan's alive and that he returned to town around 30 years ago (about the time Reacher's Father died). Deciding to stay and track down Stan Reacher, Reacher has his friend Burke drop him off at the hotel out of town, where he soon realizes somethings wrong. He tells Burke to go home and not to come back and heads off to investigate and finds that six men are hunting a young couple with bows and arrows. After rescuing the couple (who did a good bit to help themselves) he heads to town to meet Stan and discovers that Bill borrowed his birth certificate to join the Marines.

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