Plot
Jack Reacher is working unofficially with the Drug Enforcement Administration to bring down a boy's father, Zachary Beck, who is suspected of smuggling drugs under the pretext of trading in oriental carpets using his company Bizarre Bazaar as a front. They stage a kidnapping of Zachary's son, Richard Beck with Reacher appearing to be the man who rescues him. A frightened Richard places his trust in Reacher and asks him to take him back home. Reacher gains access to Beck and gradually gains his confidence by working as a hired gun and bodyguard.
While working undercover he regrettably has to eliminate a few of Beck's minions to prevent them from exposing him. During this time he figures out that he was not the only undercover agent appointed to keep track of Zachary Beck. The house maid too, turns out to be a federal agent trying to find evidence of arms smuggling against Zachary. It becomes clear that the housemaid was an ATF agent, working to gather proof of arms smuggling against Zachary. Reacher must attempt to prevent an attack on Zachary while maintaining his undercover role.
The DEA, on finding that they were mistaken about the nature of the business Zachary was involved in, tries to pull Reacher out. Reacher refuses to step back as his primary motivation in getting involved at all in this off-the-books operation is to have another go at Francis Xavier Quinn, a former Military Intelligence agent who, ten years before, had brutally mutilated and murdered a female military police sergeant, Dominique Kohl, who worked under Reacher when he commanded the 110th.
Reacher had originally presumed Quinn to be dead after their last little encounter but found that assumption to be incorrect after running into Quinn in public. It's ten years later and Quinn somehow just happens to be Zachary Beck's boss in a supremely lucrative, international gun-running enterprise. And it is revealed that Zachary was forced into working for Quinn and his family was tormented by bodyguards appointed by Quinn after a staged attack.
Reacher eventually manages to rescue Richard, his mother Elizabeth, and Teresa Daniels (the DEA's undercover agent) from Quinn, killing Quinn and leaving Zachary to be arrested in doing so, before parting ways with Duffy.
Similarities to The Night Manager
Persuader bears similarities to John le Carré's 1993 novel, The Night Manager . Like Zachary Beck, the primary antagonist of le Carré’s novel, Richard Onslow Roper, is an illegal international arms dealer posing as a wealthy, legitimate businessman. Like Reacher, le Carré’s protagonist Jonathan Pine is a former soldier recruited to infiltrate the villain’s organization by saving the villain’s son from a false kidnapping attempt. Also, as with Reacher’s motivation to avenge the murder of his MP protegée Dominique Kohl, Pine is willing to step out of his civilian life temporarily and participate in such a risky operation because several years earlier, Roper had ordered the torture and murder of a woman he cared for: Sophie, the French-Arab mistress of Roper’s Egyptian associate Freddie Hamid, who owned the Cairo hotel where Pine worked at the time. Sophie had provided Pine with incriminating documents relating to one of Roper and Hamid’s arms deals, and the MI6 agent to whom he forwarded them betrayed her to Roper, so Pine feels partly responsible for her death.
Critical reception
Leslie Doran of The Denver Post said that the novel had a "gripping and suspenseful opening" and that "for returning Reacher fans...beginning scenes will cause extra suspense". [3] Patrick Anderson of The Washington Post described it as "a skillful blend of sex, violence, sadism, weaponry, spies, smuggling, revenge, deception, suspense and nonstop action", though he also notes that the novel has "several premises that are hard to swallow". [4] After a short description of how quickly he read through the earlier books in the series after reading Persuader, Dale Jones of The Gazette simply stated "You might say I liked it". [5]
The Crime Writers' Association nominated the book for the 2003 Steel Dagger Award for best thriller novel first published in the UK. [6]
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