Somewhere in the sprawling, flat, desolate Midwestern United States, Reacher arrives by train at a

small town named Mother's Rest, curious as to the story behind the name. He meets a Chinese
American woman named Chang who is apparently searching for a lost associate. Thinking that the
town may have once been a young mother's delivery site or perhaps the final resting place of an old
woman, Reacher wanders the town asking the locals about the name, but he does not learn
anything. He decides to befriend Chang, who reveals she is an ex-FBI agent turned private
investigator who is looking for her colleague; Keever. Reacher's suspicions are aroused by the
aloofness of the locals and he decides to stay in the town to help with Chang's investigations.

Chang explains that she was only recently called in by Keever and does not know the identity of his
client or any of the details of his case. Searching Keever's motel room, Reacher finds a crumpled up
note with the name "Maloney" and a phone number. It belongs to a journalist from Los Angeles
named Westwood who is the Science Editor and handles calls from conspiracy theorists, which he
eventually blocks after numerous calls. He turns out to be a dead end. Reacher and Chang then turn
their search to Maloney, believing him to be Keever's contact and a resident of Mother's Rest. As
they investigate the town, they are confronted by hostile locals whom Reacher quickly defeats while
stealing their handguns.

Reacher and Chang then visit Keever's home, finding it to be ransacked with all of the man's
investigative notes missing. Reacher becomes convinced that Keever had stumbled onto something
big and been killed for it, and the two decide to go to Los Angeles to meet with Westwood.
Convincing the journalist that Keever had been onto something newsorthy, they agree to give
Westwood exclusive rights to the story in exchange for his help. Westwood reluctantly agrees and
gives Reacher the phone numbers of unknown people who had recently called him and been
blocked, thus fitting the profile of Keever's mystery client. They learn that their man Maloney is
actually a Chicago resident named Peter McCann.

Arriving at McCann's home, they find he has gone missing. They are then attacked by a hitman
named Hackett, who is narrowly incapacitated by Reacher after sustaining moderate injuries. The
two then question McCann's neighbor and learn that Peter had a sister. At her home in Phoenix,
they are attacked by even more hired assassins. With the help of Chang's FBI contacts, they learn the
men are all employed by a Ukrainian crime lord named Merchenko. Reacher deduces that
Merchenko is either the mastermind or outside security in the mastermind's employ. The puppet
master is apparently someone indigenous to the town of Mother's Rest. By an amazing coincidence,
Reacher and Chang happen across Merchenko outside of his club. Reacher righteously executes the
criminal in broad daylight.

Traveling back to Los Angeles, Reacher and Chang reunite with Westwood. Going over all that they
learned from McCann's sister and neighbor, Reacher posits that Peter was investigating the
disappearance of his son, Michael. Michael had suffered from anhedonia and was a recluse who
spent the majority of his time on the Internet. As the call from "Maloney" had been about the Deep
Web, Reacher, Chang and Westwood meet with an associate of Westwood's, a computer hacker
in Palo Alto. Westwood's contact is able to discover that Mother's Rest has a Deep Web site
providing assisted euthanasia services. They further find that Michael had been speaking with
another suicidal person over the Deep Web and arranged to meet them in Mother's Rest to undergo
euthanasia together.

Reacher, Chang and Westwood come up with a plan to assault the pig farm outside Mother's Rest
which is both highly remote and well-defended. After a mildly challenging, routine job of killing all of
the armed employees, Reacher's team discovers that someone had converted the farmhouse into a
film production facility. The entrepreneurs had lured in suicidal people over the Deep Web with
promises of painlessly luxurious euthanasia services. Once the clients had arrived however, they
were actually made the stars of expensive snuff films tailored to the viewer's specifications and sold
over the Deep Web. Over two hundred such victims had been brutally murdered prior to Keever
stumbling onto it in the course of his investigating Michael's disappearance. Reacher and Chang
avenge Keever, Peter, and Michael by killing the last members of the conspiracy. In the aftermath of
all that dirty work they decide to spend a little downtime in Milwaukee together.