“You’re using yourself as bait, Keeler. Is that wise?”

“Probably better to think of me as a carnivorous plant with legs. If they’re wise, they’ll just give up now, immediately. At least they’ll have a chance of staying alive.”

I think the idea with Tom Keeler, hero of Jack Lively’s Straight Shot, is to emulate Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Tom is newly retired from US Air Force Search and Rescue. But he belonged to a special unit, one trained for weapons, tactics, and covert operations. He’s a very dangerous man. Right now he’s touring Europe. He stops off at the town of Alencourt, France, because his mother’s family came from there. Maybe he can scare up some relatives.

He’s hardly off the train before somebody tries to murder him. He handles that situation with aplomb, killing his assailant, and the police give him no trouble – in fact one of them, Officer Cecile Nazari, strikes some romantic sparks. When Tom learns that a local citizen who may be his cousin has been crippled by a similar attack, and that various murders are happening around town, he starts investigating. He finds clues relating to human smuggling and official corruption. So he makes up his mind to clean the town up.

What I liked best about Straight Shot was the writing. Jack Lively knows how to put a sentence and paragraph together. The final action seemed to me kind of predictable – the previously invulnerable hero suddenly becomes vulnerable, to increase dramatic tension. And female fighters are brought in for equal opportunity or something.

But all in all I thought Straight Shot a pretty good read. I might go on to the second book.