Book Notes: My New Obsession with Lee Child

I do love a good thriller/mystery/intrigue. I was raised on Sherlock Holmes (We had the complete set - a book so huge you can't hold it up to read. Laying it flat is the only way), Agatha Christie (Poirot only, please), Tom Clancy, Dick Francis, and probably others I'm forgetting.

But this genre is akin to fantasy in that there's a lot of badly written stuff out there. I should know - I did spend all of high school devouring any fantasy that I could get with little discrimination. I've since become a bit more selective. I'll read it if it looks interesting, but if it sucks, I won't read the rest of the series (because in fantasy-land, it's almost always a series).

With the thriller/mystery genre I tend to do the same. Find an author I like, become a crazy person and rip through all the books they've ever written, and then wish that there was more once I'm done.

I first took Lee Child seriously when Macleans did a write up because they're planning a movie based on the books. I'd seen his name amongst the stacks of course, but dismissed him as yet another over-hyped serially-pumping-out-the-crappy-books author. Like (Which is such hypocrisy because there are authors I love that do exactly that, but I love them anyway.)

I decided to give him a shot, and I'm so hooked. So hooked. I've read the first three of the series, and have two more sitting waiting for me (I've promised myself to read the 14 other books that are due earlier before I dive into them)...

Jack Reacher - the main character - is just so cool. Do I like improbable dangerous-but-caring alpha males? It seems I do.

He's like a modern day, military, less-smooth Bond. He's a former Military Police officer who's quit the army, and is now wandering around the States, getting to know the country he's from but has never spent significant time in (an army brat, he grew up on various bases around the world). With no family and no commitments, he's free to roam as he pleases.

I guess the part that strains credulity (other than his exceptional fitness, reaction time, and his clinical detachment that lets him analyse a fight as he's in the midst of it) is that wherever he roams, he stumbles into a mysterious and dangerous situation. And there's always a beautiful woman.

It may be a sad, tired cliche, but I don't care. I love it. I love the writing, I love his voice, I love his perspective, I love being inside his head (some of the books are written in first person - a perspective I don't usually love).

There's a compelling immediacy to his writing - he's one of the few authors where it's sometimes just too intense, like - OH MY GOODNESS WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN??!! I get this with mildly suspenseful movies all the time, but rarely with books.

Can't wait to finish my other more "worthwhile" "literature" and jump into this pure pleasure read again!