A Quiz "Worth Dying For"

Answer: He strained almost every muscle in his body

In his 2010 short essay, "The Cliffhanger," Lee Child explains his rationale in "leaving us hanging." Child believes that his readers are smarter than the average person, and most will have filled in the blanks and come up with their own solutions to Reacher's survival.

Since some time has passed between the end of "61 Hours" and the start of "Worth Dying For," Reacher's survival doesn't receive detailed narration. Rather, "Worth Dying For" gives an anticlimactic, almost mockingly brief explanation of what happened, almost as if to say, "You already had this figured out. I shouldn't even have to tell you."

Answer: The doctor

As the doctor is getting drunk in the motel's lounge, the phone rings. The caller is one of the doctor's patients, requesting treatment. Reacher urges (almost intimidates) the doctor to make the house call. Since the doctor is too drunk to drive, Reacher drives. What Reacher learns at the patient's house impels him to get involved in the local politics. Later, we see why the doctor was so reluctant to make the house call, and why he was drowning his sorrows in alcohol.

Answer: Haulage of crops

The local farmers' struggle for survival is a difficult one, and the Duncans' services are the only feasible way to get the annual harvest hauled away. Not only do they provide haulage to those who do what they say, but they also severely punish the less obedient. For example, they send enforcers out to the motel to destroy the doctor's Subaru after he went against them.

Answer: The Russians

The Duncans' shipment has been delayed, and everyone up the line wants to know why. The Duncans claim that the reason is Reacher's presence, so the other groups send goons to take him out. This actually works for Reacher, as the goons are too busy killing each other off to come after him.

Here's the chronological summary of who gets whom: Reacher punches Mahmeini's first guy Sepehr in the chest, and Sepehr dies of commotio cordis (chest wall trauma). Rossi's guys Mancini and Cassano execute Safir's two thugs and set fire to their car and bodies. Cassano shoots Mahmeini's second guy in Jasper Duncan's kitchen. Finally, Reacher executes Cassano and Mancini and sets fire to their car and bodies. Gruesome, yes, but gratuitous, no. The violence is a worthwhile, fascinating study in greed, motivation, loyalty, problem solving, strategy, and justice.

Answer: Brett

Reacher: "What is this, the Twilight Zone? You've all got the same name?"
Brett: "Only three of us."
Reacher: "Out of ten, right?"
Brett: "Yes."
Reacher: "Thirty percent. What are the odds?"
(Brett doesn't answer.)

The ease and flair with which Reacher immobilizes all ten Cornhuskers is pure pleasure to read. He doesn't kill any of them, but he does hurt them. He hurts them bad. At one outrageously funny point, Reacher forces one of them to eat the SIM card from his cell phone - his "punishment for being a useless tub of lard."

Names are an important part of the story. Dorothy Coe, for example, is always referred to by first and last name. (Before her full name is revealed, however, she is "the housekeeper" or "Dorothy the housekeeper.") We never learn the names of the doctor, his wife, or Mahmeini's man. A skilled literary analyst may be able to give good reasons for why some characters in "Worth Dying For" are named and others are not. Personally, I think Child made arbitrary choices in order to get the more observant among his readers to think, ponder, and remember.

Answer: Miata

The Cadillac belongs to Seth Duncan himself, The Malibu is the Italians' rental, and the Yukon belongs to John the Cornhusker. A few of the other vehicles mentioned are the doctor's Subaru, a Chevy Tahoe belonging to one of the other Cornhuskers, the mysterious gray panel truck lurking near the Canadian border, and Dorothy Coe's old pick-up.

The various approaches and arrivals of vehicles in these dark, lonely parts of Nebaska receive detailed, quasi-poetic descriptions, lending thematic and structural support to the book's plot.

Answer: Dorothy Coe

The Italians beat Eleanor Duncan in an attempt to intimidate her husband Seth. In an attempt to avenge Eleanor, Reacher broke Seth's nose, having assumed that Seth was the one who had beaten Eleanor.

A great point of pride for Reacher was that he had never had his nose broken. The Cornhuskers ended his streak, though, when one of them broke Reacher's nose with the butt of a shotgun while three others held him immobile. Child's writing style when he is describing Reacher and his thoughts is usually perfectly clean, concise, and sharp. The contrast after Reacher comes to is shocking - everything is fuzzy, confused, even stupid. He knows something is wrong, and the readers know that something is very wrong. Once Reacher singlehandedly re-sets his own nose (and passes out and comes to again), the writing clears up. (He later improvises a splint made from duct tape.) Another contrast in writing style as the characters change is with the Italians - the writing from Cassano's and Mancini's points of view tells us that these bad guys are obviously cruel and small-minded.

Answer: Riding her bike, looking for flowers to admire or pick

The Duncans' vile, despicable enterprise involved the trafficking of Asian girls and women. Their business practice was to sell nine tenths and keep one for their own "personal use." The Coes had adopted Margaret from an unspecified Asian country, and tragically, she became one of the Duncans' victims.

Reacher's brilliant insight into Margaret's disappearance helped him discover a "shrine" containing the remains and photographs of about 60 Asian girls - all about eight years old. Reacher and Dorothy argued at length about whether Dorothy should go into the old barn, and he eventually convinces her to not go in.

Jacob Duncan "rescued" Seth from one of the groups in the human trafficking network and adopted him, and the Duncans raised him to be like themselves.

Answer: He kills all the Duncans and burns down their compound

Reacher actually supervises Dorothy Coe in dealing the final blows to Jacob Duncan, helping her avenge the death of her daughter.

The local residents, realizing that they are finally rid of the Duncans' oppressive regime, band together to cover up the Duncans' demise and hide it from the authorities.

Answer: Virginia

He met a woman named Susan over the phone in "61 Hours," and he's on his way to Virginia to meet her. Tragically, he doesn't know that she has left for a military assignment in Afghanistan.