Showing posts with label Lee Child. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lee Child. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

TV Review: Amazon’s “Reacher” Season 1 Gets It Right


“I didn't kill anybody. At least not recently, and not in this town.” — Jack Reacher in “Reacher”

Now this is more like it...  

A little over a decade ago, Bridget and I were eating at our favorite local Omaha Mexican eatery Señor Matias (since closed) when we learned that Tom Cruise would be playing Jack Reacher in a filmed version of Lee Child’s novel “One Shot.” 

We didn’t discover that piece of news while looking at our iPhones. Rather, Bridget and I were munching on some flour tortillas and salsa when a guy at the table behind us exclaimed, “Tom Cruise is not Jack Reacher!”

Tom Cruise doesn’t imbue the physical characteristics — or personality traits — that have made Child’s literary protagonist popular through 26 novels. 

Like many stars of the 1980s, Tom Cruise basically plays himself in most of his movies. 

That said, I really enjoyed 2012’s “Jack Reacher.”

The movie is imminently watchable and crafted to perfection. Much of that success has to do with the partnership between Cruise and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie — a partnership that has yielded “best in class” action movies like the three most recent “Mission: Impossible” films (read my review of “Mission: Impossible - Fallout”). 

Unfortunately, 2016’s “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” missed the mark (likely due to the fact that McQuarrie wasn’t at the helm). As a result of the film’s lackluster response, the future of the franchise was in doubt. 

Then, a few years ago, Lee Child teased that he wanted to bring the titular character to a “binge series” for streaming. Fans were excited at the prospect. I am one of those fans. 

The first series of Amazon’s Prime Video’s new series “Reacher” is here at last. 

In this production, Jack Reacher is played by relative unknown Alan Ritchson. 


First things first. Ritchson looks like he could eat Tom Cruise as a mid-afternoon snack. He is a physical specimen whose size, stature, and look fit the way the character is described in Child’s novels. 

The 8-episode season is built around Child’s first novel, 1997’s “The Killing Floor.” Well-versed fans of the novels will also note that some of the flashback elements are pulled from the 2004 novel “The Enemy” (read my review) and the short story collection “No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories” (read my review). 

While the adaptation paints outside the lines a little bit, it stays pretty faithful to the novel. 

The setup finds our hero — a former military police officer who roams the Earth like Caine in “Kung Fu” — arriving in the small town of Margrave, Georgia. The “Reacher pastiche” in the novels is that he goes wherever the spirit moves him (or wherever a friendly driver is willing to take him). 


Reacher is sitting down in a Margrave diner — ready to eat a piece of peach pie — when authorities arrest him for a murder that took place the night before. 

He is sent to prison with a local banker named Paul Hubble (Marc Bendavid) — a man who is scared of something and falsely confesses to the murder. 

It is such a deceptively simple way to start a story. That’s the genius of Child’s novels. His protagonist — inspired by fictional knight errants of yore — has found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time more times than he probably cares to remember. 

“Reacher” was created by screenwriter/producer Nick Santora. Santora serves as the showrunner and has worked on a number of popular shows like “The Sopranos,” “Prison Break,” “Law & Order,” and “Scorpion.” I recently reviewed Santora’s 2007 legal thriller “Slip & Fall” (read my review). 

Santora does a credible job crafting a series that is loyal to a fault. As the eight episodes rolled along, you could tell that every effort was put into capturing the magic that makes a Reacher novel so special. 

One interesting tidbit: This season of “Reacher” was filmed in Ontario. I Googled to see where it was filmed when I noticed a rack with hockey sticks in a garage during an episode — not a common sight in eastern Georgia. 


In addition to Ritchson, the show is well cast. I particularly liked the interplay between Reacher, police officer Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald), and Chief Detective Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin) as they worked to uncover the bigger conspiracy at play in Margrave. 


The entire dynamic could have been nothing more than a series of heavy-handed, character-archetype clichés and tropes. The show’s writers instead chose to employ a “lighter touch” when it came to characterizations. For that, I am thankful. 


A lot has been made of the fact that Cruise didn’t fit the physical profile of Reacher in the novels. Those who haven’t read the books oftentimes think the criticism is overblown. 

The issue is that Reacher’s physical nature is part of the reason people underestimate his intellect in the novels. His foes assume he is a simpleton — solely based on his appearance. 

That was a key ingredient lacking in the Tom Cruise movies. I mean, Cruise looks like an Ivy League educated attorney in most everything he stars in. 

Alan Ritchson does a good job balancing both attributes of Reacher. I’ll admit, he was a little stiff at times, but that will ease with time. 

More often than not, filmed adaptations of books stray significantly from their source material. We’ve seen it happen time and again in recent years. 

So there was something refreshing about watching an adaptation that tried to hit all the notes. If you look at various reactions to “Reacher” online, viewers seem very pleased with the final product. 

I know I was happy with the first season. I think you will be too. 

Whether or not you are a fan of the novels, I encourage you to check out Amazon Prime Video's “Reacher.” It is a fun action thriller that offers a compelling mystery and interesting characters. 

I’m excited to see where “Reacher” goes from here. The series has already been picked up for a second season. I’m curious to see what book they use as the basis (I’d like to see “Persuader” used — read my review). 

If you enjoyed my review of “Reacher,” follow me on X/Twitter: @TheJonCrunch 


Additional blog posts on author Lee Child and Jack Reacher: 












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Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Book Review: Tech at the Center of “The Sentinel” By Lee Child and Andrew Child


“I’ve been in trouble before. I survived. And right now I have bigger fish to fry.” — Jack Reacher in "The Sentinel"

In early 2020, author Lee Child (née James Grant) announced that his brother (author Andrew Grant) was going to take over writing duties for the Jack Reacher series. 

I recall having mixed emotions at the time. I talked about the change in my review of Child’s 24th Reacher novel “Blue Moon.” Child mentioned that he and his brother would collaborate on the next few books together — before Andrew took charge of the series. Due to the fact that I was pretty underwhelmed by “Blue Moon,” I was worried that perhaps the pair was already collaborating. 

I just finished reading the first novel in this new arrangement, titled “The Sentinel.” Andrew Grant — an established author in his own right — is now credited on the cover under pen name “Andrew Child.” 

I’ve previously reviewed eight Reacher novels on this blog (as well as the short story collection “No Middle Name”). For some reason, I put off starting “The Sentinel” for more than a year after its initial publication. 

I think I was worried about the transition to a new writer (even if that writer came from the same gene pool as Lee Child). I know there have been various series over the years that have seen writer transitions such as this (some more successful than others), but there is such a distinctive personality to a Jack Reacher novel — in terms of characterization, story structure, and writing style — that I was worried I’d be disappointed. 

Let me say first off that “The Sentinel” is a far stronger entry in the Reacher lexicon than 2019’s “Blue Moon.” It has a vibe that feels authentic in the Reacher universe. 

This time out, Reacher finds himself in the small town of Pleasantville, Tennessee, after successfully guiding an insurance negotiator (who was driving around lost in Nashville) to an I-40 onramp. 

At first, I thought naming a sleepy little Tennessee burg “Pleasantville” was an uninspired choice (considering the fact that it is the same name as a 1998 movie starring Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon), but it turns out there is actually an unincorporated community in Tennessee called Pleasantville. 

(While I thought naming a pair of fictional towns “Hope” and “Despair” in the novel “Nothing to Lose” was a tad bit hokey, at least it felt more original than “Pleasantville.” But I digress... )

The unassuming Reacher soon finds himself embroiled in a mystery shortly after his arrival at a Pleasantville coffee shop (a situation that is de rigueur for the former military police officer). 

Reacher stumbles upon a man departing the coffee shop named Rusty Rutherford — a local IT specialist. 

Reacher pays the man no mind, but soon “a signal from some ancient warning system in the back of his brain” causes his interest to ratchet up. 

His keen intellect detects a coordinated attack unfolding to snatch Rutherford (involving two men and a woman). Reacher’s MO is to help the unwary stranger.  

In mere moments, Reacher finds himself running afoul of those attempting to ambush Rutherford as well as the local constabulary. All parties seem anxious to shoo Reacher out of town. 

But our hero is persistent. 

Reacher learns that Pleasantville has been hit by a ransomware attack, and Rutherford (the town’s recently terminated IT manager) is being blamed. 

Despite Rutherford’s urging, government officials failed to invest in a more robust IT infrastructure, making the town a “soft target” for hackers and bad actors. Instead of using Rutherford to help solve the attack, the town has turned him into a local pariah — despite his intricate knowledge about such security breaches. 

All of this sets into motion a mystery wrapped in a conspiracy that has its tentacles winding beyond the boundaries of Pleasantville.

In the middle of the storm is our luddite knight errant, Jack Reacher. 

In a two-part interview with The Crew Reviews about “The Sentinel” (watch Part 1 and Part 2), Lee Child hinted that he was handing writing duties over to his younger brother because he wasn’t equipped to keep Reacher fresh for a younger audience. 

You can definitely see attempts to try and infuse more of today’s technology into “The Sentinel” — we even see Reacher nudged into using a cell phone. I don’t know for sure if Lee and Andrew intentionally went with a more “tech-heavy” focus to appeal a more “tech-savvy” audience or not, but it made me wonder. 

For the most part, the tech-based plot worked. There were some instances (such as a few too many successful attempts at cracking 4-digit security codes) that pushed the boundaries of “willful suspension of disbelief.” 

It is a trait that is fairly common with modern thrillers, so it is a minor quibble. 

To be honest, I prefer my Reacher novels to be less tech heavy. That’s the joy of this series. And I’m speaking as someone who has spent a significant portion of his adult life building websites and crafting promotional efforts online. 

I feel that technology has become something of a crutch when it comes to storytelling these days (and in many entertainment properties, computers have turned into “deus ex machina” plot devices that make detective work far too easy). 

One interesting note: In the earliest passages of “The Sentinel,” we find Reacher aiding a Nashville-based band that has been cheated after a gig by bar owner named Derek Lockhart. 

It almost seemed as if that was going to be the circumstance Andrew Child used to set the story in motion (I could have seen a scenario where Reacher unearthed some sort of conspiracy involving an organized crime ring helmed by Lockhart... or something of that nature). It ultimately turned out to be unrelated to the rest of the novel... 

I had a good time reading “The Sentinel.” While it might not rank among my favorite Reacher novels, it was a fun read that felt at home with the rest of the series. I’ll be interested to see how Reacher evolves as Andrew Grant’s influence is reflected in upcoming stories. 

Overall, I am happy the series is continuing and I think things are in capable hands. 

In other Jack Reacher news...

The new Amazon Prime Video series “Reacher” is set to drop on the streaming service Feb. 4, 2022. The first season runs eight episodes and is based on Child’s first novel “The Killing Floor.” 

I’m looking forward to the show and think actor Alan Ritchson embodies the Reacher look. It will be interesting to see if the overall execution of the show itself is as solid as Amazon’s other book-based detective series “Bosch” (read my 2018 post “You Should Be Watching Amazon’s ‘Bosch’”). 

>> If you enjoyed my review of “The Sentinel” by Lee Child, follow me on X/Twitter: @TheJonCrunch 

Here is the teaser trailer for “Reacher”: 


Additional blog posts on author Lee Child:












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Monday, January 27, 2020

Review: Lee Child’s “Blue Moon” (Plus Thoughts on His Brother Taking Over the Series)


I guess I should have known something was amiss when I started Lee Child’s 24th Jack Reacher novel “Blue Moon” a few weeks ago. 

I can’t quite put my finger on why I felt that way as I plunged into the narrative. For some reason, the “feel" just seemed different than your typical Reacher novel. 

As I flipped the pages, I wondered if Child was intentionally shaking things up, or if he’s just run out of steam (more on that later). 

Readers of this blog know how much I love Child’s Jack Reacher series. Each novel in his library is the literary equivalent of a hearty breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, hash browns, and black coffee (a meal dependably served at diners across the fruited plain — favorite haunts for Reacher). 

I’ve read the entire series over the past 14 years, and have reviewed seven Reacher novels (and a short story collection) since I started this blog in 2016. I also covered Child’s appearance at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2018. 

“Blue Moon” started off dependably. 

This time out we find Reacher traveling on a bus (something the former military police officer is apt to do) when he spots a fellow passenger scheming to rob a sleeping traveler who has an envelope full of money in his pocket. 

The bus is exiting the highway for its first stop of the day. Reacher (who has no place to be) decides to depart the bus at the depot. Curiosity is his motivation — he wants to see if the unwary passenger toting the money gets mugged. 

Reacher being Reacher, he helps thwart the mugging attempt. The man with the cash is older and he gets scraped up in the process. His right leg is sore, which makes it difficult to walk. 

The man’s name is Aaron Shevick. The cash is for a payment he needs to make at a bar before noon. 

Shevick doesn’t want to say what the payment is for, but our protagonist soon deduces the gist of the situation. Shevick owes money to a loan shark, and sold off his Chevy Caprice to raise the funds — hence the reason he was on the bus with Reacher.  

At first, Shevick shuns Reacher’s offer to help him walk to his destination, saying he can’t bring anyone along. But he soon realizes he won’t make it in time if he doesn’t get assistance walking (and the payment increases after 12 p.m.). 

Pretty intriguing setup, right?

I’m not going to give away any spoilers this review. 

The city they are in goes unnamed throughout the story, but it is shaped like a pear and controlled by the Ukrainian mob and the Albanian mob (with both crime organizations controlling separate halves of the city).

Reacher eventually learns why Shevick is indebted to mob loan sharks. We find out in fairly short order. We also learn that Shevick is married and has an adult daughter. 

Reacher wants to aid the Shevicks during their time of crisis. That effort eventually pits our hero against the Ukrainians and the Albanians — meaning Reacher gets himself embroiled in a full-on mob war. 

I’ll be honest, I found the reasoning behind Shevick’s money woes to be somewhat contrived. It’s not that the underlying reason lacked resonance in today’s society. 

Rather, the way it was presented didn’t seem particularly credible. At first, I thought it might be a “cover story” for the real reason the Shevicks were indebted to the mob. That, however, was not the case. 

As usual, Reacher stumbles across a number of interesting characters who weave their way though the narrative. 

Early on, Reacher meets a waitress named Abby Gibson. She works at one of the mob-controlled night clubs. Before we know it, Abby’s fate becomes intertwined with that of Reacher and the Shevicks. 

She wasn’t nearly as well developed as some of the other female protagonists Reacher has teamed up with over the years. 

Abby is friends with a couple of struggling musicians (Frank Barton and Joe Hogan) who assist Reacher along the way. 

One of the more interesting characters in “Blue Moon” is a former tank commander named Guy Vantresca. He's introduced to Reacher because his language skills are needed for the translation of Ukrainian text messages. 

Despite a number of “Reacher tropes” strewn throughout the “Blue Moon,” the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. Therein lies my disappointment. 

A comment Abby makes during the story sort of sums up my feelings: “It’s like one movie is playing in slow motion, and the other one is running all speeded up.” 

Most authors of series fiction have entries that are better than others. That’s to be expected. 

A week ago (when I had roughly 50 pages left in “Blue Moon”), I learned on Twitter that Lee Child (whose real name is Jim Grant) is turning over the writing duties for Reacher to his younger brother, Andrew Grant (who will write under the pen name “Andrew Child”). 

Child, who is 65, told The Bookseller, that “I love my readers and know they want many, many more Reacher stories in the future. I would love to make that promise, but realistically I am aging out of being able to keep it up. A few more, maybe, but not many, many more.” 

Andrew Grant is 15 years younger than his brother. Child told The Bookseller, “we’re going to work on the next few together, and then he’ll strike out on his own.” 

This made me wonder if the two brothers had *already* collaborated on “Blue Moon” — maybe as a trial run for the shift in duties. 

I have no evidence of that, but the thought crossed my mind upon hearing the news.  

 It is kind of sad that Lee Child will no longer be at the helm of the Jack Reacher novels. It is a terrific series and Reacher is one of the most compelling protagonists of our day. 

“Blue Moon” is fairly entertaining, but lacks the spark Child has consistently brought to the series. 

I found the story of competing mob bosses to be hard to keep straight at certain times. I would periodically ask myself, “Is this guy in charge of the Ukrainians or the Albanians?”

The notion that mob henchmen would be roaming every street of a sizable city — as if the 21st century is like Al Capone’s Chicago in the 1920s — lacked verisimilitude.

That’s why Reacher novels are typically best when they take place in small, rural places that lay off the beaten path. Tiny dots on the map don’t attract the attention of prying eyes. That’s what makes them terrific fodder for mystery and intrigue. 

Reading a new Lee Child novel is a highlight for me each year. My mom introduced me to the series in 2006, and I’ve enjoyed following the exploits of Reacher ever since. 

The next Reacher novel will be titled “The Sentinel” and it will be published on Oct. 27, 2020. 

“The Sentinel” will apparently see Reacher in Nashville, Tennessee, aiding a music band that has been cheated by a local bar owner. 

I hope Andrew Grant is able to get the series traveling in the right direction. So much of Lee Child is infused into Reacher. It'll be fascinating to see where things go from here. 

>> If you enjoyed my review of “Blue Moon” by Lee Child, follow me on X/Twitter: @TheJonCrunch 

Related blog content on author Lee Child:







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Sunday, December 30, 2018

Book Review: “Past Tense” By Lee Child


“That's the problem with denial. Reality doesn't care what you think. It just keeps rolling.” — Jack Reacher in “Past Tense”

I’m happy to say that Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher novel “Past Tense” is a return to form for the author.

I spent quite a bit of time during the first quarter of 2018 getting caught up on Child’s thrillers in anticipation of the author’s speaking engagement at UNO’s Baxter Arena last April. There were a few I hadn’t read (some old, some new), and “binge reading” them proved to be an informative experience. 

Child’s 2016 and 2017 novels — “Night School” and “The Midnight Line” — left me wanting. They didn’t have the same depth possessed some of his earlier works. That was particularly true with “The Midnight Line” — which felt more like a treatise on opioid addiction than a nuanced Reacher thriller. 

“Past Tense” finds inimitable protagonist Jack Reacher wandering the United States — as the retired military policeman is wont to do. In this instance, Reacher is trying to make his way from Maine to San Diego. A nice, diagonal line across the country. 

Along the journey, he sees a sign for a place he’s never been — Laconia, New Hampshire, where his father was born. Reacher decides to make a pit stop in the town to see if he can learn more about the man. 

In a parallel narrative, Canadian couple Patty Sundstrom and Shorty Fleck are traveling to New York City along the same highways and byways of New Hampshire in a rundown Honda. The two soon find themselves stranded with a broken down car at a small motel run by a group of peculiar men who prove far too friendly — one of them has the “Reacher” surname. 

As Jack Reacher digs up clues about his family’s past — and as the young couple tries to repair their vehicle and leave the motel — all sorts of nefarious deeds (past and present) come bubbling to the surface.

The novel’s two storylines don’t intersect until the latter stages of “Past Tense,” but both are compelling in their own right.

Small Town U.S.A is familiar territory for Child. In most instances, Child’s story structure generally stays firmly planted on Jack Reacher’s point of view (even when employing the third person narrative). He typically offers “peeks around the corner” into what other characters are doing. 

Structurally speaking, “Past Tense” was a bit different in that regard. The storyline involving Patty and Shorty could have been a novel all its own. 

In some respects, that style feels a bit closer to watching a multi-episode TV series unfold. It’s something worth noting, since Lee Child recently revealed Skydance Media is developing a Jack Reacher television series:


As always with my book reviews, I won’t give up any spoilers. 

“Past Tense” is full of recognizable Reacher tropes, wrapping them all up in a story that involves disparate elements like bird watching societies, ghost towns, and a subplot resembling Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” (a story I revisited recently when one of my nieces was reading it for a school assignment).

For the past decade, Child’s Jack Reacher series has been among my favorite thriller properties. If you are uninitiated in the world of Reacherverse, it’s well worth visiting. 

Child has created one of the most compelling protagonists in fiction. I’m happy that “Past Tense” gets the series back on track. 


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Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Author Lee Child Reveals the Only Person Jack Reacher is Afraid Of...


The day finally arrived. 

As readers of this blog know, I am a big fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher book series. I own all of his published works, and just recently completed reading all books in the author’s repertoire. 

Readers have a friend in the University of Nebraska at Omaha. For the past three years, the university has hosted the Marion Marsh Brown Writers Lecture Series — bringing world-renowned authors to our city for a discussion of their life and work. 

This year’s featured author was Lee Child. 

The event is held at Baxter Arena, which allows the university ample capacity for the event. The tickets are free to the public (a terrific outreach opportunity for the University of Nebraska at Omaha). 

Child was introduced by Dr. Mike Hilt (Interim Dean of the College of Communications, Fine Arts and Media at UNO). My wife and I had Dr. Hilt as a professor years ago when we were journalism majors at the university in the 1990s. Hilt is a top-notch individual — and a fan of Child’s novels. Hilt also conducted a Q&A conversation with the author during the April 11 program. 

Lee Child is an entertaining speaker. I’ve watched a number of his “author talks” on YouTube over the years. 

Child never wanted to be a writer. He wanted to be an entertainer. He dreamed of being part of the Beatles when he was nine (a dream likely shared by a number of kids his age in Britain during that era). 

When Child found himself out of work at 39 (laid off from a job he loved with Granada TV), he decided to try his hand at writing novels. The television network gave him the equivalent of 7 months pay as part of his severance package — so that’s how long he gave himself to write a book. He said he sold the novel with a week to spare. That novel was “Killing Floor” — published in 1997. 


The author is an avid reader. He told the audience at Baxter Arena that he averages reading a book a day (two days if it is a particularly long book). He quipped that when he was a kid in the industrial heart of England, he’d have a book in one pocket, and a knife in the other. 

Child set “Killing Floor” in the United States because it gave his protagonist — Jack Reacher — room to roam. The author emigrated to the United States in 1998. 

Child joked that he did his research on the setting for “Killing Floor” by watching the movie “My Cousin Vinny,” figuring the movie’s Alabama setting was a close enough facsimile for Georgia. 

The author eschews outlines and hard research for his novels, instead preferring to let the creativity flow. “For a writer, your whole life is research,” he says. 

Sept. 1 is the start date for all of Child’s novels. It is a sentimental date for him because it is when he started writing his first novel. He believes in the principle that "the more disciplined you are as a writer, the luckier you get."

(He told our audience that he just finished his manuscript for novel #23 last Thursday).

Child doesn’t believe in protecting his main character. He feels it is a trap that victimizes novelists who write series fiction. As a result, he tries to keep the character of Jack Reacher at an “arms length” distance so readers will like him more.

Child told the audience that there is only one person Jack Reacher is afraid of, and that person is the author himself. 

Lee Child is tall, with fair skin and sandy brown hair — much like his protagonist, only without the bulk. 

He said he’s been asked at events why he’s so thin. He mused that his two favorite food groups are nicotine and caffeine. He estimates he drinks 36 mugs of coffee per day, and keeps three identical drip machines handy so he has a fresh brew ready to go. 

Child has set novels in Nebraska over the course of his 22 published tomes. His novel “Worth Dying For” was set exclusively in the state. He said he was a bit nervous about coming to the state because the “muscle” the bad guys hired in that novel were ex-Nebraska Cornhusker football players. 


The Marion Marsh Brown Writers Lecture Series is sponsored by the Paul Brown family. I have had the unique distinction of doing web design work for some of the businesses their family has been involved with over the years. It think it is terrific that family’s generosity has resulted in this series of author events. 

I’ll be excited to see what author is featured at next year’s event. For what it’s worth, I’d love to see Harlan Coben in Omaha at some point down the road...


Leading up to this event, I filled in the gaps of the Lee Child books I had yet to read. Here are the links to those reviews:








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Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Book Review: “No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories”


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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Sunday, April 1, 2018

Book Review: “The Midnight Line” By Lee Child


I’m getting close. I’ve almost read every published work by Lee Child. 

“The Midnight Line” is the final novel in Child’s Jack Reacher series that I had yet to complete. It is also his newest (he's published 22 Reacher novels in total). 

The only work I have yet to read is “No Middle Name,” which is a short story collection by the author. I'll be checking it out shortly. 


Not that being all caught up is a requirement. I’ve attended a number of author events without being up-to-date on their entire catalog. But I always feel like I haven’t done my homework in those instances. 

This time, I decided things would be different. I figured the looming deadline of Lee Child’s appearance would be solid motivation to plow through the unread novels. More a personal goal than anything else. 

“The Midnight Line” finds Jack Reacher on a bus, headed out of Milwaukee. As is the case with Reacher, he is traveling to “destination unknown” — going wherever the spirit moves him. 

During a comfort stop in Wisconsin, Reacher happens upon a pawn shop. He sees a 2005 West Point class ring in the window — with a black stone... a small ring in diameter.

His curiosity is piqued. Reacher himself is a graduate of West Point, and his intuition tells him that the commitment and sacrifice that goes into attending a service academy isn’t something you take lightly. He can’t shed his former life as a military police officer, and wonders why the ring ended up in hock. 

Reacher questions the pawn shop owner, who directs him to a man at a biker bar named Jimmy Rat. Jimmy and his crew bring in items to sell from South Dakota (via Minnesota). They never move enough merchandise to draw the attention of the Feds. 

Reacher learns from Rat (through our protagonist’s trademark brand of fisticuff persuasion) that their supplier is a man named Arthur Scorpio. Scorpio is a small-time crook who works out of a laundromat in Rapid City, South Dakota. 

Our vigilant hero can’t let go of the burr in his brain. So he hitchhikes his way across the highways and byways to find Scorpio, and see if he can dig up more information on the ring’s original owner. 

In Rapid City, Reacher meets a police detective named Gloria Nakamura. She is surveilling and investigating Scorpio. He also stumbles upon an Illinois P.I. — who drives a black Toyota Land Cruiser — who is showing an interest in the shady laundromat owner.

Reacher eventually gets an audience with Arthur Scorpio, and information gleaned leads him to Mule Crossing, Wyoming. That is where Reacher starts peeling away layers in his investigation, and where the main narrative in “The Midnight Line” takes place...

(I visted Wyoming last summer, and this pic I took just feels like something from a Jack Reacher book...)


The novel itself has an interesting setup, and Child is at home writing about wide-open spaces in the American landscape. 

Child typically treats socio-political issues with kid gloves in his novels. That said, the author diverts from that a bit in “The Midnight Line,” and takes on a very topical crisis impacting the health of millions in the United States today. 

As is the case with any Reacher story, there are some good nuggets throughout. The character loves greasy spoons, and it is mentioned that Reacher’s go-to breakfast is “coffee plus a short stack of pancakes with eggs, bacon, and maple syrup.”

The novel itself works. Child has a knack for mixing things up from book to book. While “The Midnight Line” lacks some of the nail-biting scenes found in the author’s best work, it is an interesting tale. 

Reacher has never been a particularly introspective or wistful character, but his hunt for the owner of the abandoned class ring shows another dimension of the man. As Det. Nakamura says of Reacher, it is “a matter of military honor. Like a moral obligation. Verging on the sentimental...”

Reacher’s motivation in “The Midnight Line” is perfectly summed up by something a truck driver tells him on his journey across South Dakota:

“My wife would say you feel guilty about something. She reads books. She thinks about things.” 


If you’d like to see Lee Child at UNO on April 11th, you can visit this link to learn more details about the event, and find ticket information. The event is free. 


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