Lee Child
My dad gave me two books to read while I was on my way back to Falmouth. Turns out that was just about enough. Both books were by Lee Child from hisseries of novels centered around Jack Reacher. Reacher's an ex-army MP laid off when the government cut military spending and now travels the US in the manner of Shane: staying in one place only long enough to make it better but not long enough for anyone to get close to him.
That I was able to finish two of these in one trip tells that these are light reading. Airport literature, I think someone called it, something not too trying but certainly distracting. They do pretty well, too. "One Shot", one of the ones I read, ranked 2,421 in Books on Amazon.co.uk (10,053 on Amazon.com). The hardcover editions tend sell less, but that's because buyers expect this level of work to come out in paperback - it travels better, sells more, it's almost not worth a hardcover publication (the copy of One Shot I took was hardcover).
If this series is any indication, the "Airport Thriller" has a few conventions. One: protagonist must a trained expert in their field cut loose. Never mind that whichever organization they were cut loose from spent probably millions of dollars getting protagonist to that level, it is unconscionable to believe they'd leave of their own accord. Two: protagonist must have own set of rules AND knows how to accomodate society's rules. Any badass plays by their own rules, but only the truly bad ass do so without seeing a jail cell. Three: some disproportionately beautiful member of the protagonist's desired gender must come out of the background for recreaational bedtime. I'm leaving room there for the first gay action hero (if there's not one already). Not only must said arm candy be gorgeous, they also have to be smart - even the ditzy jail bait the bad guy sends to distract the protagonist have to have some redemptive brain cells. These are not difficult conventions to find in the books, but ultimately I didn't care all that much. It shows the author knows how to pander to the audience and do it well.
What makes the book interesting is the situations our hero gets in and how he gets out. In Reacher's case, the default solution is "through". See bad guy. Kill bad guy. Repeat until laid. Maybe it shouldn't work as often as it does, but it keeps you reading. Anyone who can beat the odds as much as Reacher does should try to hit Las Vegas at some point, but his current non-gambling adventures are still loads of fun to read.
That I was able to finish two of these in one trip tells that these are light reading. Airport literature, I think someone called it, something not too trying but certainly distracting. They do pretty well, too. "One Shot", one of the ones I read, ranked 2,421 in Books on Amazon.co.uk (10,053 on Amazon.com). The hardcover editions tend sell less, but that's because buyers expect this level of work to come out in paperback - it travels better, sells more, it's almost not worth a hardcover publication (the copy of One Shot I took was hardcover).
If this series is any indication, the "Airport Thriller" has a few conventions. One: protagonist must a trained expert in their field cut loose. Never mind that whichever organization they were cut loose from spent probably millions of dollars getting protagonist to that level, it is unconscionable to believe they'd leave of their own accord. Two: protagonist must have own set of rules AND knows how to accomodate society's rules. Any badass plays by their own rules, but only the truly bad ass do so without seeing a jail cell. Three: some disproportionately beautiful member of the protagonist's desired gender must come out of the background for recreaational bedtime. I'm leaving room there for the first gay action hero (if there's not one already). Not only must said arm candy be gorgeous, they also have to be smart - even the ditzy jail bait the bad guy sends to distract the protagonist have to have some redemptive brain cells. These are not difficult conventions to find in the books, but ultimately I didn't care all that much. It shows the author knows how to pander to the audience and do it well.
What makes the book interesting is the situations our hero gets in and how he gets out. In Reacher's case, the default solution is "through". See bad guy. Kill bad guy. Repeat until laid. Maybe it shouldn't work as often as it does, but it keeps you reading. Anyone who can beat the odds as much as Reacher does should try to hit Las Vegas at some point, but his current non-gambling adventures are still loads of fun to read.
posted by Ryan Walsh | 11:48 AM
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