In Lee Child’s long-running mystery-thriller series, laconic ex-military police officer-turned-drifter Jack Reacher has two main talents: investigating suspicious deaths and cracking bad guys’ skulls. In the first novel, 1997’s Killing Floor, he rambles into a small Georgia town, where he’s almost immediately arrested for murder; once he’s cleared, he looks into the killing with the assistance of a few plucky local cops and finds that it’s connected to a massive counterfeiting ring. That book served as the basis of the lively first season of the Prime Video streaming series Reacher, starring Alan Ritchson, which made our list of our favorite adaptations of 2022.

The latest, fourth season of the show, which premieres on August 12, is based on the 13th book in the series, 2009’s Gone Tomorrow, and it once again throws Reacher into the middle of a complicated investigation. It starts with him trying, and failing, to avert the death of a suicidal woman on a SEPTA subway train in Philadelphia. (It’s New York City’s 6 line in the book—a change of locale that may disappoint purists, and will certainly irk New Yorkers.) He soon finds out that the woman on the train was connected to a scheme involving multiple government agencies, deadly foreign operatives, and even a secretive member of Congress (entertainingly played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Marc Blucas).

Along the way, Reacher gets in numerous bone-crunching brawls, as fans may expect, and they’re always exciting and bruising affairs; if there were Emmy Awards for fight choreography, it’s fair to say that supervising stunt coordinator Buster Reeves and his team would sweep the field. It’s not for nothing that Philadelphia cop Tamara Green (GLOW’s Sydelle Noel) tells Reacher at one point: “You’re covered in blood. That stands out, even in Philly.”

Reacher is blasé about ending the lives of his attackers, to say the least. This isn’t an uncommon phenomenon in thrillers, of course, but Child’s books are private-eye novels, as well, and the genre isn’t known for such Grand Guignol body counts. Reacher’s bloody actions are usually justified as self-defense, yet the show sometimes feels a bit too easygoing about all the bodies stacking up. At one point, there’s a scene that’s absent from the novel, in which Reacher breaks the neck of an injured and unarmed villain, apparently for plot expediency; it happens so casually that some viewers may well pause the episode to ask, “Wait. What?”

This jarring moment, though, is the season’s only misstep. Overall, it’s compulsively watchable. This is mainly because the writers, including showrunner Nick Santora, wisely follow the main plot of the original novel, for the most part, and confine changes to the details. (They took a similar tack in previous seasons, which adapted the Kirkus-starred Bad Luck and Trouble and Persuader.) The writers keep the tension high, as in the novel, but also add some great new set pieces, including a suspenseful showdown on a bridge and a death-defying escape off a high-rise roof, among others. They also ratchet up the story’s stakes, so that, by the end, Reacher must avert a plan that could cause the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Viewers will be riveted, as, after all, Reacher is awfully good at what he does.

One can say the same about Ritchson, who’s convincing as both a sleuth and a scrapper. He also manages to make Reacher likable without ever letting the audience forget that the man is a force of nature. (It’s no accident that when the show’s title appears onscreen at the top of each episode, it’s accompanied by a crack of thunder.) As in past seasons, the secondary cast is just as impressive. Noel plays Philly cop Green as a sharp and funny professional who never loses sight of just how odd Reacher is. Grounded for Life’s Kevin Corrigan is also a treat as her curmudgeon superior, and Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette, as the distraught but determined cop brother of the woman on the subway, offers welcome gravitas. Indonesian singer and actor Agnez Mo, as a mysterious woman who approaches Reacher for help early on, shows impressive range as the plot becomes more complex.

Series regular Maria Sten—who plays Frances Neagley, Reacher’s cool, tough ex-military colleague and friend—is conspicuously absent this season; that’s because she’s set to star in her own Prime Video spinoff, Neagley, which premieres on September 16. Still, Season 4 of Reacher is quite satisfying on its own. Viewers will look forward to the next one, which will adapt Make Me (2015), in which, our reviewer wrote, “Jack Reacher is still going strong.” So is Reacher.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.