In a plot to overthrow the U.S. government, Montana neo-Nazis abduct the daughter of the nation's top general and her male companion. The companion is Jack Reacher, a former military policeman and he turns the tables on the captors.

Sergeant Amy Callan and Lieutenant Caroline Cook have a lot in common. High-flying army career women, both are victims of sexual harassment from their superiors; both are forced to resign from the service. And now they're both dead. Their unmarked bodies are discovered in their own homes, naked, in baths filled with army-issue camouflage paint. Expert FBI psychological profilers start to hunt for a serial murderer, a smart guy with a score to settle,...

"Skilled, cautious, and anonymous, Jack Reacher is perfect for the job: to assassinate the vice president of the United States. Theoretically, of course. A female Secret Service agent wants Reacher to find the holes in her system, and fast -- because a covert group already has the vice president in their sights. They've planned well. There's just one thing they didn't plan on: Reacher." -- back cover.

It wasn't the welcome Reacher expected. He was just passing through, minding his own business. But within minutes of his arrival a deputy is in the hospital and Reacher is back in Hope, setting up a base of operations against Despair, where a huge, seething walled-off industrial site does something nobody is supposed to see...where a small plane takes off every night and returns seven hours later...where a garrison of well-trained and well-armed military...

A tour bus crashes in a savage snowstorm and lands Jack Reacher in the middle of a deadly confrontation. In nearby Bolton, South Dakota, one brave woman is standing up for justice in a small town threatened by sinister forces--and Reacher will risk his own to save her from a coldly proficient assassin who never misses.