In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a man drives a van into a parking garage across the Allegheny

River from PNC Park, dropping a quarter into the meter. He readies a sniper rifle and assassinates
five people on the river's North Shore Trail from long range before driving off.
The police, headed by Detective Calvin Emerson, find a shell casing as well as the quarter used to
pay for parking. A fingerprint on the coin belongs to James Barr, a former U.S. Army sniper. When
the police raid his house, they find the van, equipment for reloading rifle cartridges, the rifle in
question, and Barr asleep in his bed.
During an interrogation by Emerson and District Attorney Alex Rodin, Barr is offered a choice
between life in prison in exchange for a full confession or guaranteed death row, as Rodin has never
lost a conviction. They are bewildered when Barr instead takes a notepad and writes "Get Jack
Reacher". Reacher is a drifter and former Army Military Police officer. He arrives in Pittsburgh after
seeing a news report about Barr and the shooting. Emerson and Rodin deny Reacher's request to
view the evidence but agree to let him see Barr, who was attacked by fellow inmates and is now in a
coma. Reacher meets Barr's defense attorney, Helen Rodin, the District Attorney's daughter, who
has been saddled with the apparently hopeless task of saving Barr from the death penalty.
Helen can let Reacher see the evidence if he will become her investigator. Reacher retorts that he is
not interested in clearing Barr. He reveals that Barr had gone on a killing spree during his tour in Iraq
but was not prosecuted because, unbeknownst to Barr, his victims were under investigation for
numerous rapes and the U.S. Army wanted them forgotten. Reacher vowed that if Barr tried
anything like this again, he would take him down.
Reacher agrees to investigate if Helen visits the victims' families to learn about the people murdered
that day. Reacher goes to the crime scene and finds inconsistencies about this location, thinking that
a trained shooter would have done the killings from the cover of the van on the nearby Fort
Duquesne Bridge. After Helen reports her findings about the victims to Reacher, he suggests that
the owner of a local construction company was the intended victim, while the other victims served as
a cover-up.
After an apparently spurious bar fight, Reacher realizes that someone is attempting to strong-arm
him into dropping his investigation. Reacher is later framed for the murder of the young woman who
was paid to instigate the bar-room brawl, but this only motivates him further. Reacher eventually
follows up a lead at a shooting range in the neighboring state of Ohio, owned by former U.S. Marine
Corps Gunnery Sergeant Martin Cash, who will talk only if Reacher will demonstrate his U.S. Army
sniping skills.
The real perpetrators are a gang masquerading as a legitimate construction firm, led by a former
Soviet political prisoner known only as the Zec (prisoner). The gang kidnaps Helen with the aid of
Detective Emerson and holds her hostage at a quarry. After he steals Helen's Mercedes-Benz,
Reacher outwits the mob guards, killing them with Cash's help, before confronting the Zec about the
conspiracy. The Zec points out that Reacher has killed most of the witnesses against him and
doubts that he would be convicted, while also admitting that any prison sentence he did serve would
be relatively easy compared to his time in Siberia. Reacher shoots the Zec in the head on the spot.
Reacher and Cash flee the scene with confidence that Helen will clear Reacher's name. When Barr
awakens from his coma, he tells Helen that he has no recent memory but believes that he must be
guilty of the shootings. Barr's mental reconstruction of how he would have committed the shootings
confirms that Reacher's theory was correct from the beginning. Still unaware of all these
developments, Barr is willing to accept both responsibility and his punishment, fearing that Reacher
will mete out justice if the law does not. However, it is clear he will be cleared of charges in this
killing spree.