The world suddenly got a look at a brand new movie hero in 2014 when the movie, "Jack Reacher" came out starring Tom Cruise as the lead character, Jack Reacher. After that movie I started reading "Jack Reacher" books by Lee Child (Note that Lee Child makes a cameo appearance in the movie "Jack Reacher" and plays a Police Desk Sergeant.) Amongsts those that I read was the very first "Jack Reacher" novel so I could get a feeling of the character from the beginning. I was ecstatic to find that in the 2nd Jove Premium Edition, Copyright 2012, Child writes a new Introduction to the book and explains a lot of things about how the Jack Reacher character came to be and what kinds of things shaped him ionto the character as he existed in the beginning and why and how Child tried to create a 'differentiated detective chaaracter.' he did it well and is now one of the largest selling mystery writers alive today.
On "Jack Reacher" Child says several things that are of note to the reader:
1) Lee Child was a John D. MacDonald reader. MacDonald is famous of his over 100 books, but particularly his series starring Travis McGee (All the Travis McGee novels have a color in the title. e.g. "Pale Gry For Guilt" or "That Lovely Lemon Sky") and Child used numerous elements from MacDonald's books, but also he took Reacher down a different path than MacDonald did with McGee). Perhaps one of MacDonald's most famous books was made into the movie "Cape Fear" 2 times, and that the book was titled 'The Executioners.
About McGee, Child says things like, "... I liked cleverness and ingenuity ... intriguing revelations ... " And he disliked smart detectives, that did stupid things 3/4'rs of the way through the book. "I like to see something done spectacularly well.
Child developed some rules for his Reacher books which included the following:
First: Character is King: People remember characters.
Second: If you can see a bandwagon, it's too late to get on.
Third Conclusion, and the most confounding says Child, "You can't design character too specifically."
Child then strts writing and creating the character of Jack Reacher. A character that follows the rules, those of character building, bandwagon aversion and go with the flow to some extent (i.e. do not lock yourself to tightly to an archetype of the character. Thus, a mystery icon was born. And, a mystery character was molded into aa very interesting and provocative series.
In this book, Jack Reacher was more or less just going through a small town in Georgia, when he is arrested for murder. The details and how Reacher finds them are the crux of the story. But this book set the stage for a long series of Jack Reacher books that are now standard faire in the mystery portion of pretty much any library.
Child is good, imaginative and interesting. While I would not compare his work to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the late, great Sherlock Holmes. But I would consider Child one of the best currently writing mystery writers in America, although he originally came from the UK.
"The Killing Floor" is a very fine book for a first book in a series and I highly recommend it to lovers of mystery novels. The books read quickly and keep your interest. They are not literature in the same was as Doyle, but they are good, solid mystery stories that can be read quickly. I highly recommend this book to lovers of mystery novels.
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The chilling story of the abduction of two teenagers, their escape, and the dark secrets that, years later, bring them back to the scene of the crime. | Learn more
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I apologize for my negative review
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