Second Son recap

At thirteen, Jack Reacher arrives on Okinawa with his Marine Corps family and faces a school placement test, a neighborhood bully, and two accusations threatening his brother and father. While Josephine travels to Paris to be with her dying father, Laurent Moutier, Joe is blamed for stealing the test answers and Stan faces an inquiry over a missing classified codebook. Reacher hospitalizes the bully, uses the resulting search to uncover the burned answer binder, and reconstructs the attempt to frame Joe. The bully confesses, clearing Joe and cancelling the test. Reacher then concludes that Helen's exhausted Marine father probably retained the codebook and sends investigators to Helen's house, though its recovery is not confirmed. After Stan, Joe, and Reacher go swimming, Josephine calls to report Moutier's death at ninety.

So far this book: Laurent Moutier is critically ill in Paris, but his housekeeper cannot reach his only daughter, Josephine Reacher, because her family has just moved from Guam under the restrictions surrounding Stan Reacher's new Marine Corps posting. On Okinawa, Stan settles Josephine and the two boys, Joe at fifteen and Reacher at thirteen, into off-post housing. The brothers learn that placement tests will decide whether their disrupted education allows them to advance a grade. Joe treats the possibility of being held back as an insult and wants to discover what the test contains, while Reacher intends simply to pass and rejects getting advance information. Local boys then block their way to the beach and demand a toll. Their apparent leader threatens the newcomers, though arriving Marines prevent an immediate fight. Stan takes command of four rifle companies assigned to a classified contingency involving China. He forbids Joe from approaching the school about the test and gives Reacher responsibility for waiting at home for a telephone delivery. Meanwhile, Moutier remains unable to contact Josephine and reflects on the long life that followed his service in the First World War.

So far this book: Reacher receives and installs the family's telephone, then meets Helen at the beach. She has also been targeted by the boys demanding a toll, and he agrees to walk her home. Once the telephone makes contact possible, Josephine learns that Laurent Moutier is near death. Stan arranges her journey from Okinawa to Paris, while the boys remain behind for their school test. Before leaving, Josephine privately gives Reacher an urgent instruction. Two crises emerge after her departure. Stan reports that a classified codebook connected to the China contingency has disappeared, placing his career at risk. The school also reports that its placement-test answer binder was stolen after Joe visited the building. Joe says he turned back from the administrative area without seeing or taking the answers, but he is now the obvious suspect. Unless the accusation is resolved, he may be excluded or held back. Josephine reaches Paris and reports that her father is expected to live only a few more days.

So far this book: With Josephine in Paris, Reacher spends time with Helen, and the two begin a tentative romantic connection. The neighborhood bully confronts them in the street. Reacher deliberately provokes the larger boy, strikes before he can react, and knocks him down, but refuses to continue once the immediate contest is over. The bully promises another encounter. Reacher then understands two pieces of family guidance. Stan's order for electrical cable has given him material with which to weight and protect his hands, and Josephine's private airport instruction charged him with looking after Stan and Joe while both are under pressure. Reacher decides that merely winning the first fight is insufficient. He wraps wire around his fists and returns to the local group. He incapacitates the bully's sidekick, breaks the bully's ribs and elbow, and leaves him unconscious. The injuries create the opening Reacher intended for the next part of his plan.

By the end: As the ambulance removes the injured bully, Reacher asks Stan to call the intelligence officer and military police handling the missing codebook. He sends them into the bully's empty home, where they recover the burned metal spine of the placement-test answer binder from beneath a bed. Reacher reconstructs an effort to frame Joe: the bully stole and burned the answers, intending to transfer the remains to the Reachers' incinerator on trash night, but abandoned the plan when the absence of ashes made the planted evidence too obvious. Reacher waits for the school to act before sharing his view of the other investigation. The bully confesses, Joe is formally cleared, and the test is cancelled because the answers no longer exist. Reacher reasons that Stan probably never lost the classified codebook. Instead, an exhausted planner working away from the base may have kept it inadvertently. He identifies Helen's father as that likely planner and directs investigators to Helen's house, although the codebook's recovery is not confirmed. With the immediate inquiries over, Stan, Joe, and Reacher go swimming. Josephine then calls from Paris to report that Laurent Moutier has died at ninety. She remains in Paris while the others remain on Okinawa.

The neighborhood bully is hospitalized after Reacher defeats him and his sidekick. With the bully's house empty, investigators find the burned metal spine of the stolen test-answer binder. Reacher explains how the bully meant to place the remains in the Reachers' incinerator and implicate Joe. The bully confesses, the school clears Joe, and the placement test is cancelled because its answers have been destroyed. Reacher then argues that Stan probably did not lose the classified codebook. He identifies Helen's father as the likely exhausted planner who still has it and directs the investigators to Helen's house, but the result of that search remains unresolved. Stan, Joe, and Reacher go swimming after the immediate inquiries. Josephine remains in Paris and telephones with the news that Laurent Moutier has died at ninety. The family is still divided between Paris and Okinawa, and Stan's classified military responsibilities continue.