I made it. I got caught up with all of Lee Child’s published works as of yesterday…about 48 hours before the author is set to speak at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Baxter Arena.
I was running on fumes. I read six of Child’s novels in the past two months. “No Middle Name” capped off the reading marathon. It is a collection featuring 12 short stories by the author.
I’m not sure of the genesis of every story in the novel. I know that some of them were released as digital exclusives. Others likely appeared in various collections and anthologies over the years.
Short story collections can be something of a mixed bag. This collection is no exception.
Be that as it may, there are some fun moments in “No Middle Name.”
For me, the most interesting moments came in the stories “Second Son” and “High Heat.” Both tales focus on Child’s protagonist Jack Reacher when he was still a teenager (back in the 1970s).
“Second Son” finds Reacher living with his family (mom, dad, and brother Joe) on a military base in the Philippines in 1974. “High Heat” finds Reacher wandering the streets of New York City during the 1977 blackout.
Each story gives us insight into the early days of Jack Reacher — back when he was an Army brat, prior to his time as a military policeman, and before his noble crusade as an unwitting vigilante.
There is a certain charm in reading stories that take place before the advent of cellphones and computer technology. I think it would be fascinating for Child to craft a full novel focusing on Reacher in that era.
The other two stories in the collection that stood out were “James Penny’s New Identity” and “Not a Drill.”
In “James Penny’s New Identity,” Reacher is something of a supporting character (when I first started reading it, I wasn’t sure if it involved Reacher at all). The story focuses on a Vietnam veteran (Penny) who finds himself suddenly laid off from his plant job in Laney, California. It is June. Penny suffers from what sounds like PTSD.
Frustrated, Penny burns down his home (a constant reminder of the wife who divorced him) and keeps the only thing that means something to him — a shiny, red Pontiac Firebird.
He decides to take his severance pay — along with his Firebird — and hit the road. Unfortunately, Laney is located in the Mojave Desert and has a ramshackle volunteer fire department. As a result, Penny’s act of frustration results in fire destroying two of his neighbor’s homes.
That makes Penny a wanted man, and leads to all sorts of trouble for the disillusioned vet.
“Not a Drill” finds “present day” Reacher roaming around Maine. He decides to hitchhike his way to the northern end of I-95. Reacher “had a collector’s instinct when it came to places.” Since he had spent much of his life along the Interstate, he wanted to see the northern terminus before Canada.
When he arrives, he hitches his way back south with two girls and a guy in a decrepit minivan. The friends are headed to Naismith, Maine — where the forest is untouched by human hands. Two of the crew are planning to spend a few days hiking through a trail in the virgin forest. The other girl (Helen) is set to take the minivan to an adjacent town and pick them up.
Reacher tags along to Naismith — a small dot on the map with musty cabins, kayak rental on the adjacent lake, and a diner.
But there is trouble afoot. A mystery lurks in the woods...
As I mentioned earlier, short story collections can be something of a mixed bag. Sometimes the trimmed down tales can feel rushed and unfulfilling. There are a couple of those instances (in my opinion) in “No Middle Name,” but that is a minor quibble.
There are also two Christmas-based stories in “No Middle Name” (“Maybe They Have a Tradition” and “No Room at the Motel”), and the final story in the collection (“The Picture of the Lonely Diner”) is inspired by Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks.
It is a nice feeling to have Lee Child's books crossed off my to do list. There are so many authors I enjoy reading. As time progresses, you find yourself collecting the books, wondering if there is any hope of ever making it through them all.
As much as you want to gain the bigger picture in a fictional character’s arc — and the arc of a writer’s career — it is the little moments that you live for as a reader. I’m talking about descriptive passages that set the scene and evoke an emotion.
This is epitomized by a passage in Child’s short story “High Heat.” Reacher heads into a New York City coffee shop, looking for refreshment and an escape from the triple digit temperatures:
“An air conditioner over the coffee shop’s door was running so hard it was trembling and rattling, but it wasn’t making much difference to the temperature of the air. The girls were together in a booth of four, with tall soda glasses full of Coke and melting ice. Two of them were blondes and one was a brunette. All of them had long smooth limbs and perfect white teeth.”
Those moments are where Lee Child is at his best...
Tomorrow night (April 11) is Lee Child’s appearance at UNO’s Baxter Arena. Expect a full write up this week...!
P.S. — I just noticed there is a new Lee Child digital short story on Amazon (“I Heard a Romantic Story”) published earlier this year. I guess that means I’m not “fully” caught up. I’ll have to catch that story when it shows up in print down the road.
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