Die Trying by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on September 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I fear that it’s beginning to test my powers of creativity to review these Reacher books. For one thing, yes, I admit it, they are rather alike. The general plotline is: Reacher is wandering aimlessly. He stumbles into a situation of danger (or it stumbles into him), generally danger to someone else, a relatively defenseless individual, possibly of the attractive and female persuasion. He becomes involved. There is intrigue, mystery, different bad guys than we originally thought; usually there is an attractive female; there is violence, fighting, skill and cleverness. Reacher wins at all the various contests; there’s a satisfactory ending for the good guys and he rides off into the sunset.

This is so SATISFYING though, I still like reading it. Reacher is such a big cute clever badass, I never tire. And it doesn’t hurt that Child keeps the intrigue intriguing, and suspenseful, and smart enough that the puzzle keeps me engaged right through to the final nailbiting moments. Keep ’em coming, Child, they’re still doing it for me even if there is a formula.

The other reason my creativity is being challenged is the already-evident fact that I just rave about them on and on. So now that I’ve admitted that, I’ll give you the plot and try to keep the raving to a minimum.

In Die Trying, the second book in the series, Reacher stops in the doorway of a Chicago drycleaners to help a young, attractive woman with a crutch who is mid-stumble and about to drop her drycleaning. In the moment of their contact, she is kidnapped at gunpoint by three goons, who see fit to just take Reacher along for the ride. The woman, Holly, turns out to be an FBI agent – quite a good one – with some lofty connections, and they are being driven cross-country for reasons unknown. There is attempted rape, and a crazy right-wing militia bent on establishing a new nation in the Montana wilderness. The FBI and the US military higher-ups are involved; it is unclear to various parties which side other various parties are on; as Raych noted, there’s dynamite. The above formula is followed, but as always, there will be some surprises.

I love it; it’s a very satisfying formula. And here’s the thing: I think I keep saying this, but I think it’s the best one yet! I can’t decide. Echo Burning was my very first Reacher experience, and holds a special place for me because of the South Texas setting. Strangely, I really liked One Shot for all the gun stuff. But The Hard Way has to be one of my top two or three, because of the high stakes and how much I got invested in the little family unit that was at risk, and especially the little girl and the horrible danger she was in… and I really liked Reacher with the lady-friend in that one, too. The small family he forms towards the end was the one I mourned the most, knowing he must move on as always. Worth Dying For also had very high stakes that upped the tension a notch for me. I guess those are my favorites…

So, I do have a problem with always liking “this one” the best. But Die Trying is a new favorite, too! The militia was an interesting twist for a bad guy. There was a psychological-thriller aspect to it. (I don’t want to give away too much.) And, what can I say, I never tire of Reacher’s ability to figure things out quicker than his peers.

If you’re interested, I mildly recommend to you that you start at the beginning of the series, with Killing Floor, but only mildly. If you start in the middle you may find yourself very satisfied – just look at me.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Tripwire by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on September 20, 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!

Love my Lee Child on audio, y’all. It was especially fun to find this one starting off in Key West, since we (thought we) were headed there on vacation a few weeks ago. Not that Reacher sticks around in Key West for long, though; this one mostly finds us in New York, so far.

Here’s your teaser:

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 pocket.

Stop back by and I’ll have a review for you shortly! What are you reading this week?

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Teaser Tuesdays: Die Trying by Lee Child

Posted on September 13, 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!



These days I’m listening to Die Trying on audio. It’s the second of the Reacher series; I’m going back and reading the ones I’ve missed in order, catching up. The new one, The Affair, comes out this month. I will probably keep going in order and thus avoid the early rush to it. So, here’s our teaser from page 432:

Holly had wanted to see the sky. She was standing there under the vastest sky Reacher had ever seen.

EDIT: I had to change my teaser because I had quoted the wrong BOOK! I’m so sorry, friends. Stay tuned for the next in the Reacher series, where the first-posted teaser came from…

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The Second Son by Lee Child

Posted on September 12, 2011 by pagesofjulia

A slight diversion from the norm here, for Mr. Child as well as for me: he has written a Jack Reacher short story (as opposed to his usual novel), set in Reacher’s childhood (as opposed to adulthood), and here’s the big one – gasp – available only as an e-book, and not in “real” print. I was excited about the first two and not about the third. I have been a late adopter of many forms of technology, and the e-book, while a great thing for a lot of people (even some friends and family, people I KNOW), still scares me and strikes me as a little bit blasphemous. Give me ten years to get used to the idea and maybe I’ll get one someday. But for now, I said, how will I read this Reacher story? My mother bought it for me (thank you Mom) and I went over there on a Saturday afternoon with a brown bag lunch and sat down and read it. So this was an experiment with the e-format, as well as a Reacher story.

So. First, the story. We know Reacher (in the series of novels about him, of which I’ve read 10-and-change of 16) as an adult; I believe he was 36 when we met him in Killing Floor. In The Second Son, he’s 13. As his fans already know, his father is in the military, his mother is French, he has a brother two years older (Joe), and they move constantly – like every few months. The family of four has just arrived in Okinawa, and as usual, the local military kids (who have been there just perhaps a little longer than the Reachers) want to fight Reacher and Joe. (Yes, he went by Reacher even as a kid.) Joe is accused of one crime, and their father of another. Their maternal grandfather is dying, back in France. And Reacher saves the day. I don’t think that’s too spoilery, since he always does.

This was an enjoyable little story. If you normally like Reacher, you’ll like this; it has all the right ingredients. Reacher is a badass; he meets a cute girl and impresses her; he saves the day. If anything, the requisite suspension of disbelief is slightly greater than in the novels, because he’s just a kid here, so his badassery is that much more amazing. There’s one line I found especially funny where …some sort of military authority can’t believe he’s about to ask this 13-yr-old kid for help in his investigation. But really, if you’ve bought into Reacher, you’re comfortable with the suspension of disbelief, so you should be fine. It made me sigh with satisfaction. It’s like a Reacher novel in miniature.

And the format? Well, I don’t have any strong or specific complaint. It worked fine, although I had to tilt it just right to avoid glare at one point. The pages turned. I played with changing up the font size. I’m not against it. The strongest argument I know in favor, is for travel: not having to lug a largish number of books around, but having them all in that slim little package. My mother has some 40? books open on her machine right now, just because they’re there, but I don’t see this as a selling point; I’ve been known to read 2, 3, even 4 books at once, but more than that is just silly. I see that as actually detracting from the reading experience, because I’d be so confused, so start-and-stop. I’d rather be immersed in a book. I know the point is not to have 40 books going at once, of course, and if I were traveling it would be nice to carry less. But so far in my life this is not a great need for me.

I’m not angry at the e-book. But I’m not enamored; I love real books (battered old paperbacks, preferably) too much, and don’t feel a need for what I see as the greatest reason for e-books, that carrying of less. But it was an interesting experience to get to try one out with a quick read like this. Thanks Mom. If you read The Second Son, please do share your thoughts.

And the rest of you (Mom included) – would you care to share your e-reader-vs-print thoughts?

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Killing Floor by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on August 18, 2011 by pagesofjulia

My love affair with Jack Reacher is going strong; or perhaps it should be just starting here? This is the very first Reacher novel published. (While Child did later publish prequels, he recommends they be read in publication order rather than chronological order. Read all about it.) So, in this book, the Reacher I’ve come to know is just six months out of the army. He’s a former MP – military policeman – just roaming, trying to figure out what he’s doing with himself. He was raised in the army, living just a few months at a time at barracks around the world. When it was time, he went to West Point, and found spending four years in one place bizarre. Then he graduated, entered the army himself, and has lived the rest of his life a few months at a time at barracks around the world, too. So roaming comes naturally. (This is the first time I can remember finding Reacher to be a music fan. The song “Rambling on My Mind” recurs.)

Reacher roams into small-town Margraves, Georgia, and is arrested immediately on a murder charge. He’s calm; he knows he’ll be cleared, since he didn’t do it. But when he finds out who the murder victim was… he’s involved, and has to stick around. The victims start stacking up, and he meets a pretty girl who’s also a local cop, and Reacher is pulled into a big mess. The team of killers is stalking him, and he’s not afraid to do battle, especially considering who they started with.

I’ve written about Reacher quite a bit. He continues to be big and burly and frankly, sexy, and tough and uber-capable and clever. The plot line is actually pretty predictable: Reacher will kill people. He’ll get away with it. He’ll probably get laid, although the sex is not graphic. (The violence is.) He’ll amaze you and make you gasp. Like a sighing reader of romance novels (who reads not to find out if they’ll hook up, but just to be there when they do), I’m not here to find out how he’ll win – I know he will. The suspense is in who the bad guy is and how it all comes out. I feel a little bit wrenched every time he walks away from the town, the situation, the girl, and the new quasi-friends he’s made. But he’ll keep on walking away.

But this is the FIRST time he’s done it! I was thrilled to meet him near the beginning of his lack of career, his aimless wandering, and see his plans formed. This is the first time I’ve seen him consider hanging around – because it’s his first retired adventure. Later in the series he’ll learn not to consider it. We also get to meet his brother (well, sort of) which gives me a differently-angled view into his background. I look forward to reading the prequels, too, for the same reason.

Come meet Reacher at the beginning, y’all. This is a classic of Reacherdom and I love it.

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book beginnings on Friday: Killing Floor by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on July 15, 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.

I take a deep sigh and snuggle in when I begin a new Lee Child/Jack Reacher novel, because I know I’m in for a treat.

This one begins:

I was arrested in Eno’s diner. At twelve o’clock. I was eating eggs and drinkings coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town.

Yep, that’s Reacher, all right – walking from a highway to the edge of a town, and eating eggs and drinking coffee in a diner. Getting arrested is not too far off the norm, either; although a former military cop, he does tend to have trouble with authority. Lives by his own rules, let’s say.

This one looks great, like all the rest! What are you reading?

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The Hard Way by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on July 13, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Okay, you all know I’m a big fan of the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. I have read 9 of the 15 currently out (with The Affair to come in September, yay!). So please take me seriously when I say this is the best one I’ve read yet!

As has become my habit, I listened to this one as an audiobook in the car. I love the narrator, Dick Hill. I think he has just the right mix of slow, serious cadence (imbuing Reacher’s words with the gravity they deserve), and a lightheartedness in the right moments.

And like all the Reacher novels, this novel is fast-paced, suspenseful – I mean real edge-of-the-set, sitting-in-the-driveway-biting-my-nails-while-Husband-wonders-what-I’m-up-to suspense – and action-packed. Reacher is his usual superhero self. Mysterious characters approach him as he tries to mind his own business, and (with limited reluctance) he enters their world, to try and save a kidnapped woman and child. But wait! Are the bad guys really who we think they are? There is intrigue, including military and international intrigue. There are beautiful, sexy, strong, independent women; some of them are also traumatized. There are loyal sisters. Reacher is cool, funny, comforting, and simultaneously rock-hard strong and smart, and brutally violent. (Only when it’s appropriate, of course.)

In The Hard Way, Reacher is recruited by a team of mercenary ex-special forces soldiers to assist in solving the kidnapping of the boss’s wife & step-daughter. As things unfold, he discovers that he hasn’t been told everything – like the fate of the boss’s first wife, kidnapped five years prior, and the fate of two former employees. His loyalties shift; he’s not sure who he can trust. He meets a former FBI-agent, who was involved in the earlier kidnapping case, who may turn out to be a partner of sorts.

I think part of what made this one extra-special to me was the extremity of the danger and trauma at stake, and the happy ending that our sympathetic characters are teased with, the happiness they MIGHT achieve if Reacher is successful. There are some gruesome images offered up; this is not for the faint-at-heart. But if you love a lone ranger with iron-clad morals, a heart of gold, and a Rambo-style ability to inflict pain on those who deserve it, in a world of beautiful/handsome good guys and really bad bad guys, Reacher may be for you. In fact, it’s rather like the traditional Western novel in that lone-ranger sensibility. But these have an intelligence lacking in the traditional Western (not trying to call them stupid; bear with me). Reacher thinks things through in a split second, and we get to share his thoughts on bullet trajectories, angles, percentages, and the weighing of one possible outcome against another. It’s very cerebral at the same time that it’s very physical. I love it.

Before this novel, I didn’t think I’d have favorites within the series. They’re all pretty great. But I’d put this one up there, and if you’re curious, I’d also pick out Echo Burning as a favorite. It was my first Reacher novel, and I picked it up because of the setting: far West-Texas desert on the Mexican border, which is an area where I have spent some very good times. That got me in the door, and opened up the whole series for me, and I’m SO grateful. It had another extra-high-stakes plot (at least for me… I mean, they’re all high stakes, but these two got me somehow, I don’t know. maybe you’d be “got” by a different pair of them) and that setting that I appreciated so much. Also a real knock-down, drag-out OK Coral sort of final scene that really got me going.

Do you read Reacher? Which one is your favorite? And if you don’t – why not?!? No, I jest, sort of. We don’t all have the same tastes. But for suspense and action, I couldn’t recommend it more highly. If not this one, what’s your favorite series? And do you have a favorite within it?

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ALL the Lee Child books! or, reading series in order. or, who’s your favorite?

Posted on July 4, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I’m not going to call it a “challenge” or anything, it’s just something I’m going to do, someday. Having finally caught up and read ALL the Michael Connelly books – for years my favorite genre author – I immediately fell off again, when he published The Fifth Witness. I have yet to read it. I’m content knowing it’s out there, and I’ll get around to it. For that matter, it will be out in paperback soon, all the better. I have a new genre man, and his name is Lee Child.

photo credit: his website

I’ve read 9 of his books in the last 8 months or so, and I’ve been raving about him, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. So I’ve decided that clearly he’s my next conquest: I’m going to read them all. I even got on his very nice, helpful website and found a nice checklist – isn’t he clever? (Or perhaps, his marketing team?) So now I know what I’m looking for, and even in what order.

Which brings up another point. Do you read series in order? I have a number of patrons who are paralyzed by the need to read series in order. If a certain book is checked out or unavailable, it halts their reading. I’ve never been one of those people. I read all the Connelly novels, and there’s a good chance, nary a one in the order intended. And that was fine with me. I haven’t been paying any attention to order with the Lee Child books, either, although I’m happy to know and all things being equal, will aim for chronological correctness. I just don’t feel strongly enough to go well out of my way, though. I find the character development over a series to be equally fascinating when viewed out of sequence. That way, I’m viewing the author’s artistry, as well as the fictional character’s growth. As a point of interest, you might notice that Child recommends that his books be read in the sequence in which they were written, which actually puts their timeline out of order. In other words, the 8th book he wrote in the Jack Reacher series is set well before the first. Interesting.

I’m in no hurry, I’m setting no timeline, and I’m not firm on the sequence; but I do know I want to read ALL these books. (It doesn’t hurt that the Husband enjoys these books, too!) Maybe next year it will be someone different – maybe a nonfiction author like Janet Malcolm or Erik Larson. Who knows? There are so many good authors out there, and we don’t always get around to reading a whole lot or all of their work as we might mean to when we first discover their talents. Sort of like Amy’s comment about taking Agatha Christie for granted. I know you can sympathize with me here! Who have you always wanted to read more of?

And what Lee Child will cross my desk next??

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book beginnings on Friday: The Hard Way by Lee Child

Posted on June 17, 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.

Welcome back to Jack Reacher’s hard-hitting, fast-paced, intelligent world of good-vs.-evil action. I’m psyched to step into this series again. My last audiobook was Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero which was wonderful, so I’m on a roll now. We begin:

Jack Reacher ordered espresso, double, no peel, no cube, foam cup, no china, and before it arrived at his table he saw a man’s life change forever. Not that the waiter was slow. Just that the move was slick.

Ah, Reacher. YOU’re the slick one.

What are you reading?

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Nothing to Lose by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on June 5, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Lee Child is one of my favorites, as you will know if you’ve been following my blog. His serial character, Jack Reacher, is a tough guy with a good heart who travels the country with nothing but his ATM card, an expired passport, and a folding toothbrush to slow him down. He’s a retired military policeman, just trying to enjoy the scenery, but he keeps getting pulled into hairy situations in which he decides to right the wrongs of the world and protect the little people.

In Nothing to Lose, we observe yet another of those episodes. Reacher is trying to travel diagonally across the country, from Maine down to San Diego. While moving west across Colorado, he stalls in a town called Hope, unable to hitch a ride into the neighboring town of Despair. (Yes, these names have meaning. You’re so sharp!) So he walks instead, but only to discover that the inhabitants of Despair don’t want him around.

Reacher eventually teams up with the sometimes-reluctant Officer Vaughan of the Hope PD. The town of Despair seems to have a lot to hide. At first glance, it’s an unpleasant little company town, owned entirely by the self-satisfied owner of the metal recycling plant, Mr. Thurman, who is also the mayor and the lay preacher. But there’s oh so much beneath the surface, including ties to international military concerns; and Mr. Thurman and his thugs are willing to go to great lengths to get Reacher, and any other stranger, far away.

This, along with the last Reacher I read (or rather, listened to), Gone Tomorrow, tackles issues of politics, the military and US foreign relations. Reacher is surprisingly anti-war, for being military – that is, not anti-war exactly, but against stupid wars of racism and oil-sucking that get American kids killed. He’s a very rational, thinking man. I like this about him. Don’t worry, the politics are way, way background.

Like all the Jack Reacher novels, this one is fast-paced, suspenseful, exciting, and has sympathetic, likeable, complex characters. You’ll be on the edge of your seat; you’ll care very much about what happens. You’ll be outraged along with Reacher, you’ll cheer him on, and you’ll be first impressed and then feel vindicated by his prowess.

I definitely enjoy the Reacher series on audio. Dick Hill is great at Reacher; he’s started to be Reacher inside my head. These get me to and from work very happily every day. 🙂 Thanks Lee Child and thanks Dick Hill, and keep ’em coming! (Unabridged, please.)

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