Oh dear, here's me, telling everyone what great books Lee Childs writes featuring his unbeatable hero, Jack Reacher, but then I read his very latest, The Affair, and "oh, what a falling off was there"! The point about Childs's books are that they are simple yarns for simple minds. They require no effort on the part of the reader, you just sit back whilst Jack Reacher does all those naughty things you wish you could do, if you are a man, or, that you admire in a man, if you are a lady. The very last thing you want to do is grapple with a complicated plot. If you want that, and I do sometimes, then go to John le Carré. Unfortunately with this latest book, Lee Childs overloads it with a plot of such complexity that credibility disappears - always assuming you can follow the plot in the first place. To add to my irritation, he has repeated a habit from previous books in attempting to describe the local layout in some detail. We are forever driving north before turning west and then taking a side-road to an interstate highway which goes south and so on and on. Please, Mr. Childs, next time, just ask your publisher to print a map at the front of the book, it will make it all much easier for the reader. To be fair, he has written 16 of these tales so on the law of averages he's bound to produce the occasional clunker. Even so, 'could do better, Mr. Childs' is my admonition, er, but don't tell Jack Reacher I said so!
I know what you mean. I had to go to Google earth to follow the plot of one of his books, set in Montana.
Posted by: Kevin | Monday, 16 January 2012 at 21:34
Thanks, Kevin, glad I'm not the only one.
Posted by: David Duff | Monday, 16 January 2012 at 23:11