REACHING FOR JACK REACHER

By David Beilstein

ONE of the things I do when following books and movies is pay attention to the things people I admire (writers, directors, novelists) like. For example, if Elmore Leonard really, really, digs a certain author, say George V Higgins - chances are, because I love Dutch Leonard, I’ll like the novels of the late Mr Higgins.

I cannot remember when this process has failed me. But I can say, it can sometimes be slow. Sometimes I miss someone or something - an author, a book, a movie, etc. Enter Lee Child’s novels concerning Jack Reacher - soon to be played by Tom Cruise in theatres everywhere, based upon Childs' novel, One Shot.

How did I find this?

Going back, I’ve been a fan of screenwriter/director Christopher McQuarrie since he broke out with 1995’s The Usual Suspects. Suspects is a spectacular crime film - all the pistons are pounding away. The flick is an arresting “how to” about breaking the rules of screenwriting and not muck up the works. I also happen to be one of a few cult admirers of McQuarrie’s directorial debut follow up, Way Of The Gun (2000). 

Soon thereafter, McQuarrie disappeared, slaving away in studio rewrite purgatory. His stock faded. He wrote a couple highly praised “spec” scripts (Alexander The Great) and Booth - about President Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth. Everyone loved the scripts, but nobody wanted to make the historical epics. Go figure. Finally, in 2008, McQuarrie was back in front of the typewriter for Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie.

The long and short of it: if McQuarrie wanted to do a Lee Child's novel - it must be good, I thought. Being a fan of the crime genre, I have to be honest and say I’ve never felt female authors captured the crime world to my liking. Not for me, anyways. Yeah, I’m sexist. So, Lee Child was a woman to me - call me stupid - hence, I never got into the Jack Reacher novels.

Until recently.

I just finished Jack Reacher’s third adventure chronologically, entitled Tripwire. I was more than a little impressed. Lee Child (a nom de guerre), is a former television director in England. Given a pink slip of some kind, he moved to America and began writing novels. His budget, $6 in writing supplies. If writing didn’t pan out, Child's wife said he could always be a “reacher” - someone who stocks shelves in the grocery store or something close.

And bang! Jack Reacher was born. And this character is more than a little fun. Reacher is a lot of fun. And unlike Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series, Child's writes so well we’re shown who Jack Reacher is - we’re not told who he is. Better still, the series is set up in such a way a reader can begin with any of the novels.

There is a literary quality to the Reacher series. This I did not expect in a crime genre character - call it, entertainment literature. And Jack Reacher is an all around good guy, unlike the scumbags who populate Elmore Leonard’s universe. Minus a few names, the bestseller list is all to often littered with far from great writers. Not the case with some, and now I know, not the case with Lee Child.

Reacher is an American hero - a loner, but a man with a strident moral compass. Now I’m hooked and I plan on reading every book in the series. And I’m reminded - because I often saw the name Lee Child in the mystery section of bookstores and libraries, the old adage never dies…

Never judge a book by its cover - or the author’s pseudonym.