The Affair by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on October 30, 2011 by pagesofjulia

The brand-newest Reacher, just out a few weeks now, is another flashback or prequel: it’s 1997, and Reacher is still in the army. He is sent out to Carter Crossing, Mississippi to do damage control on a murder case that threatens the army’s good reputation. There’s a lot of politics involved: the local army base is sending companies secretly into Kosovo, and one of the captains in question is the son of a senator in the Armed Services Committee. It develops that this very captain has some connections to the murdered woman – or maybe his father the senator does. Reacher breezes into town intending to remain under cover while investigating the case parallel to the above-board MP working from the base; but his cover is immediately blown by the local sheriff, a former Marine MP herself. The one murdered woman turns out to be the third in a series of similar killings – the first two having been ignored apparently because they were black. And then more people start dying. What exactly is going on here? And who can Reacher trust? He’s inclined to trust Elizabeth Devereaux, the sheriff, but he’s getting conflicting messages from various sources at the army.

The Affair is in several ways a standard Reacher production, and in several ways not. Reacher does his investigating; he’s a smart guy and he figures things out; he eventually will get the bad guy(s), no doubt about that. There is rather less ass-kicking in this book, though. Husband was disappointed, and I was just flat-out surprised at how easily and relatively bloodlessly the hooligans were taken down. There is rather more sex – Reacher does tend to get laid in many of the books, but the sex got a little more attention in this one. It was well done – I’m not complaining – but I was a little confused at the shifting focus. I wonder if Child has figured out that he has a number of female fans swooning over Reacher and decided to play up to them (us)? As a swooning Reacher fan myself, let me say: more ass-kicking please! I don’t begrudge him the sex but that was never the primary focus, and I’d rather stick with the classic model of ass-kicking with sex on the side, rather than the other way around.

This bit is very slightly spoilery… I had some trouble suspending disbelief as we discovered all the mistakes made by the illustrious Elizabeth Devereaux in investigating the murders before Reacher’s arrival. If she’s such a veteran hotshot MP herself, how did she miss that there was no blood on the white collar of the woman who had her THROAT CUT? Etc. She beats Neagley at the mind game at which the latter supposedly excels but makes all kinds of amateurish mistakes in the murder investigation. It just didn’t ring true for me. End spoiler. But hey, maybe I’m just mad at the whole Reacher camp right now because… have you heard? They’ve cast Tom Cruise, of all people, to play him in the movie they’re making of One Shot! Blasphemy, says I. Reacher is supposed to be 6’3″ and 230+ pounds, muscular, and blonde. Sigh. And I’m not alone – you should see the Reacher fans raising hell over at the facebook page.

But all in all, this was another satisfying edition of the Reacher adventure. I liked it. It just wasn’t my favorite. I wonder where Child is going to take Reacher from here? It occurs to me that he’s getting older (possibly a reason to keep writing prequels!) – but Child came up with another possible plot thread here: the younger version of Reacher, named Duncan Monroe, just a bit earlier in his career and otherwise apparently a spitting image. I guess we could always revisit Monroe as Reacher ages. What do you do with an aging hero? Realistically we could see him forced to accept some realities and calm down a bit; but action/adventure/thriller/hero/mysteries don’t always take the realistic route! At any rate I’m still hooked in. What’s next, Reacher?

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guest review: In Session by MJ Rose, from Mom

Posted on October 22, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I posted my review of In Session a few days ago; now here’s my mother with a very different impression of it. For fairness’ sake. 🙂

In Session is a short but sweet introduction to the work of M. J. Rose and her character Dr. Morgan Snow, a sex therapist. I’ve never read her, but I will be looking for more of her work. The premise of this short story is that she manages to make contact with three fictional characters and involve them in her work. She makes a very satisfactory connection with Reacher, Lee Child’s hero, and the only one I have any experience with.

The first session (as in therapy session) is with Cotton Malone, who’s the creation of Steve Berry. Dr. Snow finds a way into his antiquarian bookstore to look at an erotic book from the 15th century. Discussion of the book leads to some discussion of his personal hang-ups, and a point is scored in favor of reflecting on and starting a resolution of these issues.

Calling this work erotic seems a bit of a stretch; there is certainly a lot more explicitness in many romance novels, I think. Perhaps in a full-length work, there’s more opportunity for a theme to blossom. In these sessions with the doctor, the issue of a sexual nature in couples’ lives is strong, but, as it should be, it’s also mixed with other aspects of people’s needs, such as dominance and trust. Eroticism is not the focus of the doctor’s work, but rather an important part in human nature that’s her area of expertise.

In the next two sessions, she meets with Reacher and Barry Eisler’s John Rain. I have to presume that she gives them accurate characterization, as all three authors have approved – and applauded – the work. The meetings are not contrived, but arranged so that the sexual issues can be raised with men who would never have consented to any kind of therapy. This book is just a taste of Rose, but I see lots of promise in her character and style.

I read a digital galley from NetGalley.

Thanks Mom! I’m glad you liked it.

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In Session by MJ Rose

Posted on October 19, 2011 by pagesofjulia

In Session involves a sex therapist named Dr. Morgan Snow (MJ Rose’s serial character), who undertakes to treat three heroes of serial fiction: Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone, Barry Eisler’s John Rain, and finally Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. Those of you who follow this blog will recognize which of these guys brought me to Dr. Snow’s office – I’ve never read any Berry or Eisler, but Reacher is my fictional main squeeze these days. That said, my brief glimpses of Rain and Malone weren’t bad; maybe I’ll check them out one day, too.

Rose apparently challenged the three authors’ heroes to sex therapy sessions, and they told her if Dr. Snow could wrangle the guys she could treat them. So this book consists of three episodes in which the good doctor meets each of the three men, outside of a standard doctor’s office/therapy setting, and chats with them – to some effect.

I had no history with MJ Rose and didn’t know what to expect. The blurb my mother got from NetGalley referred to Rose (or this book? it wasn’t exactly clear) as… Erotica, Health, Mind & Body, Literature & Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers, Romance. Wowza! What the heck have I gotten myself into? Well, I think these genres must refer to Rose’s work in total, because they don’t all apply to In Session. One sex scene is described in minimal detail; it doesn’t qualify as Erotica. Health, Mind & Body must refer to the therapist character; but her work isn’t covered in any depth. Literature & Fiction? I don’t think so (more in a minute). Mystery & Thrillers is the most likely candidate, just based on the home environments of the three male leads, although there’s not much mystery & thriller in their stories here. And not much Romance, either.

I wasn’t very impressed. Dr. Snow approaches one man under false pretenses and sneaks him some therapy while he wasn’t looking. The next she approaches with an appeal to his services, and they both learn from their interaction. And the third stumbles upon her in a time of need, and he ends up telling her (upon her repeated demands) about a particular sexual experience. In each case, the characters are completely lacking in development and dimension. The therapy is pitifully simplistic and straightforward. Dr. Snow repeats a few lines to several “patients.” The therapy – the growth, the learning about oneself and making progress as a sexual or emotional being – is too facile to feel real. Would it help if I came in with a familiarity with all three male heroes, rather than just one? Maybe; but the Reacher scene wasn’t really any more satisfying than the others. His voice didn’t sound like Reacher to me. Perhaps these tales were just too short. I read them in about an hour (total); there wasn’t time for the characters to develop or for there to really be a problem, a solution, a catharsis, a resolution, any meaningful change. But that reasoning isn’t fair to the short story format, because we all know that there are plenty of artists who paint beautiful pictures in brief snippets. It’s certainly possible to develop a character and, well, tell a story in the short story format. It’s just not done here.

I think the appeal of these three stories is in seeing your favorite hero in a different light, maybe getting into a different aspect of his character. It was a fun concept in theory; it got me: I wanted to see Reacher on the sex-therapy couch. But I was disappointed.

Anybody else check this one out? Any positive impressions? I think my mother liked it and maybe she’ll tell us about it here. How about any fans of Rain or Malone??

I read a digital galley from NetGalley.

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The Enemy by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on October 16, 2011 by pagesofjulia


The 8th book in Child’s Jack Reacher series is a flashback, a prequel, set in Reacher’s days of employment with the U.S. Army. He is an MP (military police) major and it’s New Year’s Eve, 1989. The Berlin Wall has just come down, Soviet Russia is collapsing, and the U.S. military is facing major changes. Reacher has just been transferred from Panama to Fort Bird in North Carolina when people start dying. He enlists the help of young Lieutenant Summer and the two of them quickly find themselves drawing outside the lines – the military establishment repeatedly orders them off the case, makes threats, and finally demands their arrest. As we expect of Reacher, though, he solves the crimes and fixes everybody up right.


This is fun for several reasons. We finally see Reacher on the job. We see him and his brother Joe interacting; Joe is only treated in the past tense in the other books. (Well, there is the short story The Second Son also, in which the brothers are teenagers.) We meet Reacher’s mother and learn something about her past that her sons never knew; this is an especially poignant moment.

A few things are different in this book, too. For one thing, Reacher does fix up the problems and solve the mysteries; but it doesn’t end on quite as hopeful a note as the other books tend to. In his retired, roaming life, Reacher generally sets off into the sunset at the end of the book, headed for unknown adventures, with a world of possibilities ahead of him. At the end of The Enemy, he’s still in the army, but things have changed irrevocably; the end of his career is foreshadowed, and we begin to understand why he chose to get out. There’s a sadness. He wasn’t able to right all the wrongs. Something that’s not different in this book: I’m sad to see Summer go. But the characters we come to love in each book are always necessarily gone at the end; Reacher moves on.

Suspension of disbelief is necessary in every Reacher book; he’s too good, too strong, too smart, too perfectly-timed and awesome to be real. But I have a good time and I can play along. This time I had a little more difficultly with the suspension of disbelief, though, because he went so far off the reservation while in the army. I’m accustomed to seeing him not play nice, but he’s usually a renegade wanderer; it’s a little more bizarre to see him be just as much a rebellious loner while he’s still in the military.

But putting that quibble aside, it’s a highly enjoyable book as usual, and fans of the series will appreciate the backstory and further character development (of Reacher, as well as his brother and mother) provided by this flashback.

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book beginnings on Friday: The Enemy by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on October 14, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.


And we’re back to Lee Child and Jack Reacher on audio. Although the 8th in the series, this one’s a prequel, a flashback to the time when Reacher was still an active MP in the army. In fact, it’s the new year of 1990, and the wall has just come down and the fall of Soviet Russia is bringing change to military structures. The Reacher family also suffers a private tragedy, and private revelations.

It begins:

As serious as a heart attack. Maybe those were Ken Kramer’s last words, like a final explosion of panic in his mind as he stopped breathing and dropped into the abyss. He was out of line, in every way there was, and he knew it. He was where he shouldn’t have been, with someone he shouldn’t have been with, carrying something he should have kept in a safer place.

No surprise here: I’m loving it.

What are you reading this weekend?

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Without Fail by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on October 8, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Reacher is back!

This one follows Echo Burning, my very first Lee Child read. Reacher has just hitchhiked cross-country, from Los Angeles to Atlantic City, with a pair of musicians who, while minor characters, I came to appreciate. Reacher’s interactions with these minor players help to form his character as a basically good-hearted and generous guy; he goes out of his way for them. In Atlantic City, Reacher is tracked down by a Secret Service woman who knows him through his brother Joe, her ex-boyfriend. She wants to hire him to assassinate the Vice President elect. Weird, right? No, she wants him to sort of mock-assassinate. It’s meant to be a security audit. But of course, the reason why she wants a security audit is… someone is trying to kill the Vice President. (Elect).

I have to confess that my first reaction to the plot premise was… do Vice Presidents really get assassinated? I thought the old joke was that they were sort of insignificant, until somebody assassinates the President. At any rate, I gladly buy in because it’s a fascinating storyline. So Reacher is working with Froehlich – that’s Joe’s ex, the Secret Service ace – and Neagley, a fellow retired MP and general badass who Reacher calls in. Neagley was a fun character to meet, too: she’s got skills and smarts much like Reacher, and they’re clearly pretty close, but she also has baggage that I’d love to learn more about in a later novel. The layers that are discovered! Well, so we spend a lot of time in DC for obvious reasons, and also in North Dakota where the VP-elect has been serving as Senator; and the final scene takes place in the middle of nowhere in Froehlich’s home state of Wyoming. It’s a well-traveled book (have you been counting? CA, NJ, DC, ND, and WY) and naturally ends with a bang.

I have just a handful of new observations with this listen. As stated, I’m really enjoying some of the minor or side characters. I have also noted something in this book that I’ve been unconsciously appreciating throughout this series: Child presents back-story, technical details, and general exposition in a smooth and natural way. You know how sometimes, if we need to know that the kid goes to soccer practice every Wednesday, the mom will say to the dad, “Can you pick up Billy from his usual Wednesday night soccer practice this week even though I usually do?” And that’s silly, because real people don’t put in all that detail in dialog when the other person already knows it? Child does it better.

Also, I’m beginning to notice speech patterns. Reacher has a way of ending a lot of his statements with a rhetorical “…right?” As in, “so, we need to get there first, right?” It’s just one of those colloquialisms people have. But what I think I noticed in this book is… other people have the same verbal habits. I’m not sure that’s entirely realistic, since one of the features of the Reacher books is travel, geographic instability, everybody being from different places. Reacher even emphasizes this, observing from people’s speech and clothing that they come from different parts of the country; he’s really big on regionalism. I like those touches. But everyone having the same rhetorical “…right?” seems somehow less authentic. I don’t know, it’s just something I noticed.

Along the same lines, I think I’m beginning to hear narrator Dick Hill (who I love for this series!) use the same voices for several different characters. All women, I think, and that may explain it; it may be difficult for his deep man’s voice to come up with different female-character-voices. But still. I guess I’m beginning to recognize patterns. Is it perhaps time for a break from Reacher? Ha ha ha. NO! I’m still loving it. Don’t take my Reacher away.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Without Fail by Lee Child

Posted on October 4, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

Yet another Lee Child! Yes! In this one, Reacher is hired to try to assassinate the vice-president of the USA. You know, as a sort of security audit; not for real. But is somebody out there trying the same thing – for real? (My first reaction to this is, the vice-president? Really? Do they get assassinated?) Here’s your teaser:

The guy on the right took his hands out of his pockets. He had the same neuralgic pain in his knuckles, or else a couple more rolls of quarters. Reacher smiled. He liked rolls of quarters. Good old-fashioned technology. And they implied the absence of firearms. Nobody clutches rolls of coins if they’ve got a gun in their pocket.

Yes, I used more sentences than prescribed, but wasn’t it worth it?

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Tripwire by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on September 29, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Y’all, I just have to tell you something as an aside: I suspect I’m pretty unique in this, because I know so many strict series-in-order readers, but I LOVE reading out of order. Is there something wrong with me? I love the fun feeling of knowing something the in-order reader won’t. Rather than ruining the surprise (which, honestly, I don’t think I can remember happening to me ever!) I often find it enhancing things; it’s like a whole new fun, knowing what’s coming, especially in that moment of realization. In Tripwire, for instance: I will try to do this nonspoilerarily, but there is a character we meet for the first time, who I pretty quickly recognized as a character from a later book I’ve read. So I had this moment of OH! she will be THIS later, and now I have a new angle from which to watch the action unfold: I’m looking for hints of what I know is to come. No, I don’t want to know who the bad guy is right from the start. But that’s not the kind of thing I find spoiled by a series out of order. Perhaps this is because often, in mystery series, we don’t see the same bad guy in book after book. Or if we do, it’s not the FACT that he’s the bad guy that drives the later book – it’s finding him. So, no spoiler. See? Flipping to the end would spoil the book; reading the book after the book often does not. On the other hand, though: knowing that there are more Reacher books after 61 Hours definitely does spoil the question of whether or not he survives. I guess the only way to be cliff-hanged on that one was if you read it when it came out and before the next in the series…

I’m sorry. Back to Tripwire. Ahem. I loved this book… I seem to say this every time… this is one of my favorites of the series. It opens in Key West, which is fun because we were just there recently. I love the idea of Reacher digging swimming pools (by hand!!) and getting even more muscled, gaining weight, and getting a tan while he’s at it. I also love that he’s drinking lots of water. I’m a fan of water, too, and like Reacher I like mine at room temp, not cold. I’ve digressed again. So we open in Key West but then quickly move up north to New York City, where Reacher is reunited with a friend from his past. Again I’m working to avoid spoilers here, but the relationship, past and present, was extra special to me because it continues to develop Reacher’s character, and is especially poignant in exposing his strong emotions and vulnerability. What makes Reacher so loveable is that he is a Rambo superhero type, yes, and also very clever, but also vulnerable. There are humorous moments. Will the house have… closets?? (Go read it, you’ll understand.) And of course the mystery is clever and complex and kept me guessing. I love Reacher’s deductions, like in dealing with decades-old skeletal remains – this puzzle dates back to the Vietnam War – and I love how it ends, with a new chapter in Reacher’s life.

I recently bothered you with a rundown of my reading of Reacher to date. While putting together that list, I realized that they fall into two categories for me: memorable, and not so much so. I’ve enjoyed every single Reacher I’ve read, but some I LOVE and continue to mull over after the fact, and some, in compiling my list, I had to reference to even see what they were about. (The titles are not always descriptive of the action of the book.) Are you curious? Below, see those I have read and loved, those I have read and mostly forgotten, and those I have not yet read. (For links to my reviews, see this post.)

1. Killing Floor
2. Die Trying
3. Tripwire
4. Running Blind
5. Echo Burning
6. Without Fail
7. Persuader
8. The Enemy
9. One Shot
10. The Hard Way
11. Bad Luck and Trouble
12. Nothing to Lose
13. Gone Tomorrow
14. 61 Hours
15. Worth Dying For
16. The Affair
and the short story, The Second Son.

Tripwire ranks up there. I fear my Reacher reviews are getting repetitive for you. Excellent as usual. Continuing on with Without Fail next. What are YOU reading?

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Teaser Tuesdays: Tripwire by Lee Child

Posted on September 27, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!


Here’s my confession. Those of you who were paying close attention may have caught the *brief* posting of the teaser below a few weeks ago, incorrectly attributed to the book just before this one in the Reacher series, Die Trying. I’m trying again; it’s actually from Tripwire, which I’m adoring. I think it’s a great teaser and it wasn’t up very long on that day so once more…

Here is your teaser from page 432:

An hour later Reacher was drifting down Duval Street, thinking about new banking arrangements, choosing a place to eat an early dinner, and wondering why he had lied to Costello. His first conclusion was that he would cash up and use a roll of bills in his pants pockets.

It was fun that this teaser visited Key West, because Husband and I have just returned from that very island.

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working my way through Reacher.

Posted on September 25, 2011 by pagesofjulia

(Presumably you saw my Die Trying post yesterday.)

I am working my way through the entire Jack Reacher series by Lee Child, slowly but very surely. And I’m having to start taking notes on which one included which action, because there are so many and I was out of order. Here they are in the order Child recommends:

  1. Killing Floor: our introduction to ex-military cop Jack Reacher, on the roam, who is arrested in Margraves, Georgia for a murder he didn’t commit. When he finally finds out who the victim was, it becomes his case to solve.
  2. Die Trying: Reacher stops to help a woman struggling with her dry-cleaning on a Chicago sidewalk, and gets kidnapped along with her. She turns out to be a well-connected FBI agent, and they have to work together to escape a truly bizarre criminal scheme.
  3. Tripwire, which I’m listening to now. Begins in Key West but quickly moves to New York City, where Reacher reconnects with an old friend and works to solve a mystery that stretches back to the jungles of the Vietnam War.
  4. Running Blind (yes, in two posts): A series of career women with the U.S. Army are dying, and the authorities are sure Reacher is their killer. This makes it his case to solve.
  5. Echo Burning, my very first Reacher book! I fell in love, not only with Reacher himself, but with the setting: far West Texas, where the desert of my home state meets Mexico and lawlessness reigns. An attractive housewife in a horrible predicament needs Reacher’s help, professional killers are on their way, and the final showdown remains one of my favorites.
  6. Without Fail, up next
  7. Persuader: A ghost from Reacher’s past reappears on a busy city sidewalk. He’s supposed to be dead. Reacher undertakes to fix the problem.
  8. The Enemy
  9. One Shot: A sniper is killing wantonly in Indiana. With all the evidence pointing to one man, it’s an easy arrest. But he wants Reacher there, and won’t say why. The police can’t find him, but don’t have to, because he shows up on his own. He knows the sniper from his army days, and may have something to add to the case.
  10. The Hard Way: Reacher is drafted into a private security company to find the boss’s kidnapped wife and child. He’s back in the detective business suddenly, not sure who he can trust. The solution might surprise us all, Reacher included.
  11. Bad Luck and Trouble
  12. Nothing to Lose: Hope and Despair are two towns in Colorado that deserve their names. What’s going on in Despair, and why don’t they want Reacher around? Telling him to leave is a good way to get him to return, repeatedly, until he understands. Luckily there’s a cute cop in Hope who might be willing to help.
  13. Gone Tomorrow: Reacher spots a subway bomber with his expert eyes in the first pages, but it will take the whole book to find out what she really had in mind and why.
  14. 61 Hours: Winter in South Dakota would be nasty enough without a threatened prison riot and gosh-knows-what headed our way. Keep your eyes peeled for a heroic local librarian. 🙂
  15. Worth Dying For: A frightened town in Nebraska that wants Reacher to leave immediately obviously really needs him to stay and fight the bullies.
  16. The Affair comes out the day after tomorrow!! Hie thee to a bookstore! My library has it on order (hardback & on audio), but I’m going to wait til I’ve worked my way through them all before I get to the latest.

Also, The Second Son, a recent Reacher short story.

If you have been clicking these links, you may have noticed a few things. One: I didn’t read them in order. Or rather, I read a bunch of them out of order and then realized what a fan I had become, and went back and worked in order through the ones I’d missed, which may be a little silly but has been working for me. Two: I have polished my bloggingness: Some of those older posts exhibit qualities I have learned to avoid, like covering two books in one post (I only do this now in the rare digest-version post, like after a vacation), or NOT titling the post after the book. Sorry. I just have too many other interesting things to do, than go back and fix those old posts. From now on, polish.

Anybody else reading – or have you already read – all the Lee Child series of Jack Reacher novels? Any other fans out there? I know there are; he’s a popular guy… also know we’re not all fans. My Pops, for one, didn’t dig the 61 Hours audiobook I lent him. It sounds like it was the short-and-choppy writing style that did it for him (or, didn’t do it for him) as well as the significant suspension of disbelief required to get down with Reacher’s superheroness. He didn’t hate it, though. More so, Raych at books i done read appears to have hated Die Trying. Reading her review made me cringe (just a little) because I LOVE and she DIDN’T, but they can’t all please us all. How long the lines would be, if we all liked the same stuff! It’s okay, Raych, I forgive you. Everything she said of Reacher (or Child) was true; no arguments; just a different appeal to this different girl.

Have you read any? What’s your call?

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