Books

The Secret

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

I just finished reading the latest Jack Reacher book, #26, called “Better Off Dead.” And I think it might be my last Jack Reacher book. This is the second book Lee Child has co-written in conjunction with his brother Andrew.

Friday, December 30, 2022

So, this time I mean it, No Plan B was the last Reacher book (#27) I’m going to buy. I’ve got digital copies of the first two dozen books and I’ll probably go back and read each one as they get adapted for the Amazon Prime TV series.

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Hello, my name is Brian and I’m a Reacheraholic.

After watching the first three episodes of season 2 of Amazon’s Reacher a month ago I started jonesing for more Reacher. I though maybe I’d go back and read some of the early novels and I have already read through the whole series several times, so I didn’t really want to do that again. I have already watched Amazon’s season one twice, so not again because it is too soon.

So what’s an addict to do? That’s right, in spite of my protestations listed above I bought a physical copy of Jack Reacher novel #28, The Secret.

Either the writing in this book is getting better or I have just gotten used to the new brother team of authors, but this book was not bad. The plot seemed recycled and mashed up from a couple of earlier books, The Enemy (#8) with its high level Army folks in on the bad side and Night School (#21) for its inter-agency cooperation team. Plus in both of those books they are set in the past when Reacher was still in the Army.

Anyway, I’m now anxiously awaiting late 2024 when Reacher #29 will hit the bookstores…

Reacher Returns

A year ago I wrote about the second season of Reacher and how I hoped it would be in February 2023, a year after season one was released. Didn’t happen then, but it did happen a couple days ago.

Once again, Thursday night on the US’s west coast is actually Friday somewhere so that Amazon releases the episodes. Last year Amazon dropped all 8 episodes on the same day. Because that first season was available in total, I watched all 8 episodes over the span of 3 days and then was disappointed because there were no more.

In that blog post about season one I said I almost wished that they would release the episodes at the rate of one a week. Well, I got my wish sort of, this year we only got the first 3 episodes on premier day with the rest to follow one at a time on the next 5 Fridays. Now I’m kinda bummed I didn’t get to binge all eight episodes in a couple of days. There is just no pleasing some people. 🙂

No Plan B

I know back in February that I said that Better Off Dead, might be my last Jack Reacher book, but it wasn’t.

After buying a couple of new sweatshirts with my self gifted Christmas bonus I still had a wee bit of money leftover. I thought maybe I would get our local bookstore to order for me the latest Jack Reacher book, No Plan B. That way I could pick it up on our every four week visit that coincides with our haircut. The next of which was on the calendar for the 29th.

Donna said go ahead and get it from Amazon, so you could have it for Christmas. So, on the 18th I placed an order. At checkout my estimated delivery date was listed as the 28th, so much for that expedited Prime delivery. In the end they did get it to me earlier than that and even earlier than Christmas to boot, the book arrived on Christmas Eve.

The first few books every story was more or less direct, as if you were walking in Reacher’s shoes, but as the series progressed the stories would occasionally give the point of view of the villain in the story, but still it was very Reacher centric. This last novel written with his real life brother, who will eventually take over by himself, was with four different points of view. Of course Reacher was the center point and there was also the main bad guy, a CEO of a for profit prison that was up to no good. That really was enough, but we also got a thread about a father out for revenge because of his sons death. There was also stuffed into the narrative, the story the story of a teenager boy who is running away from home. Both of these last two story lines were left until the end to fit into the main story and done in such a way that seemed jarring to me. And while both of them were, in some way, used to further the plot along, in the end they both were wrapped in about a paragraph each and they really weren’t really needed.

So, this time I mean it, No Plan B was the last Reacher book I’m going to buy. I’ve got digital copies of the first two dozen books and I’ll probably go back and read each one as they get adapted for the Amazon Prime TV series.

Reacher: Season 2

The first season of Reacher was based on the first book of the series, Killing Floor, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I liked it so much that when I ran out of interesting stuff on Amazon Prime a few days ago, I rewatched it.

Not long after Amazon released Reacher this last February they announced that a second season had been approved. I figured maybe I should reread the second book, Die Trying, in preparation for a hopefully February release of season two on Amazon. Because I have read most of the Reacher books multiple times as soon as I read the first couple pages I knew the basic outline of what happens.

Book #2 starts with a kidnapping that Reacher inadvertently stumbles into and gets swept up along with the kidnappee. Then there is a cross-country trip in the back of a truck along with the victim who turns out is an FBI agent and daughter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and goddaughter of the President. So far so good, but then it devolves into a Montana militia group declaring independence and stolen nuclear missiles and the US military, etc. I’m thinking that this would be hard to translate into a 8 episode series. Turns out I need not have worried.

I went looking online to see if their were hints as to when the second season would be coming out, February again maybe, and discovered that the second series was based on the eleventh book, Bad Luck and Trouble. Off to the book and after reading the first page I thought, “Ooh, this is a good one.” It also, to me anyway, seems a lot easier to adapt to the small screen.

And maybe they knew this was what they were going next because one of the things I wondered about in season one when they introduced a character that really doesn’t show until book six, Frances Neagley. She was his sergeant back when Reacher was in the Army and part of his command of the 110th MP Special Investigation Unit. Bad Luck and Trouble is about getting the old gang of the 110th back together to find out what happened to one of their members present day. Neagley’s early entry into the series in season one brought a bit of foreshadowing to season two when she uses the phrase, ‘You do not mess with the Special Investigators’ which is a central to the plot of the eleventh book (and perhaps the first time it is used in the books.)

Robert B. Parker Books

I’ve written here numerous times before about my love of Robert B. Parker books, but not for quite a long time now. The other week when we lucked into a woman getting rid of her mom’s stuff and gave us carte blanche on her jigsaw puzzles, she also offered up any of the books too. Donna grabbed a few and I picked up 4 hardcovers of Robert B. Parker books. Only one of which was actually written by Mr. Parker, well one and a half.

The first book was the fourth novel of the Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch western series called Blue Eyed Devil. I had read the first two of these books, and while I enjoyed them, I didn’t seek out any more, very much unlike the Spenser series, which at one time I had a copy of every one of the books. This book was the last one Mr. Parker wrote before he passed away, but the series has continued with Robert Knott churning them out. Number eleven is due out this October.

The second book I took was a Jesse Stone novel called Colorblind. I can’t tell you how many of these books, about an ex-LAPD detective turned police chief of a small Massachusetts town called Paradise, I have read, maybe four or five of the nine he wrote. There are now twenty Jesse Stone books total, the one I just finished was written by Reed Farrel Coleman who took over the series back in 2010. Mr. Coleman wrote nine books before giving way to Mike Lupica who is responsible for the latest two books.

The third book I got was Little White Lies, a Spenser novel, that was written by Ace Atkins. Previously I had read one of the other Spenser books by Mr. Atkins, but didn’t really like it. This one was different, I enjoyed it, at least for the first half. The book was only maybe a third or so longer page-wise than the typical Robert B. Parker, but the text is denser, making the halfway point feel about the time the book should have finished.

The fourth book, which I haven’t read yet, is called Silent Night: A Spenser Holiday Novel. This book was unfinished at the time of his death and was completed by Parker’s longtime literary agent Helen Brann.

I did get something interesting from the third book, I got to add to my collection of Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules for the first time in 15 years: On the list of crime-busting techniques, talking to the nosy neighbor was always in the top five.

The More Things Change

The more they change.

I just finished reading the latest Jack Reacher book, #26, called “Better Off Dead.” And I think it might be my last Jack Reacher book. This is the second book Lee Child has co-written in conjunction with his brother Andrew with the intention to retire and hand over the reins of the Reacher books to him.

I don’t know to what extent Lee has been involved with the writing in the last two books, but there has been a slightly different feel to “Better Off Dead” and #25, “The Sentinel.” I can’t actually put my finger on what it is, but I haven’t enjoyed these two books as much as I did the first two dozen.

The same thing happened with the Spenser books by Robert B. Parker. I read a few of the books in the early 2000s and liked them so much that I started searching used book stores, eBay and garage sales trying to find the 35 or 36 novels already out. My collection of books ended up roughly half paperback and half hardcover and I read every one of them in order, from the first to the last. I even created a page here on the blog entitled Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules.

Robert B. Parker, like Lee Child, wrote a new book each year, so I bought the next three hard covers when they came out. But in 2010 Mr. Parker died of a heart attack and his estate worked with the publisher to find an author willing to take on the task of continuing the series. Ace Atkins finished the book Mr. Parker was working on when he died and then continued the once a year writing schedule. I think I read a couple of those books written by by him, but again it just didn’t seem the same, so I stopped.

Both Andrew Child and Ace Atkins were novelists in their own right when they took over from the creators of the already beloved characters, but I just think the writing slightly changed. Then again I’m willing to concede that maybe it is just me and my perception because there was a different name on the books.

I Suppose It Is the Fourth of February Already Somewhere

Earlier this evening I sat down in front of the PC, and because it is the day before the Reacher series premiers on Amazon, I might find a newer or different trailer out that I hadn’t seen yet. Well, there wasn’t any trailer, but the entire show was there waiting to be watched.

So I watched the first of the eight episodes. Watched it all the way through, even the credits. The lead actor fits the bill and I believe he is Reacher incarnate. From now on whenever I’m reading a Jack Reacher book I will picture Alan Ritchson in my head, just like I visualize Sam Heughan in any of the Outlander books.

This story is based on a book set in Georgia and the scenery looked the part, from the countryside to the small town square. I checked IMDB and the only filming locations mentioned are in Ontario, Canada. I guess it is a good thing they filmed it in the summer.

Also on the IMDB page there were several user reviews already there and they were dated February 4th even though it was early evening here. It wasn’t even past midnight on the east coast.

But then I remembered the credits I watched. I had noticed at the end of them the voice actors were listed for all the different countries that will be seeing this show. I realized, at least from the languages I recognized, many were in Europe and it was actually February 4th there.