September

 

California lawyer Evan Delaney has survived an insane religious cult and a death-fetishist serial killer, and in Jericho Point, the third novel in Meg Gardiner's crime series, she has another set of very deadly problems to deal with. The trouble begins with the gruesome murder of a young girl at a Santa Barbara party attended by Jesse's immature, wayward brother P.J. Turns out the dead girl was an accomplished identity thief, and Evan was her last victim. Sucked into a dangerous whirlpool of crime, violence, and rock and roll, Evan and Jesse must outfight a pair of vicious loan sharks, navigate some fresh wrinkles in their incredibly complicated relationship, and identify a demented killer within the ranks of Santa Barbara's would-be celebrities.

Mission Canyon, the last Evan Delaney novel, was one of my favorite thrillers in forever (the first installment, China Lake, had problems, but was still pretty great overall). Jericho Point falls somewhere in between its too predecessors. It's an extremely fun read, a propulsive hybrid of mystery and thriller, with expertly drawn scenes of tension and suspense and some truly fantastic character-building. And Gardiner's spiky, sassy prose is, as ever, a delight. I do have some issues with the novel that prevent it from reaching the heights of Mission Canyon, though.

Problems first: Jericho Point's Achilles Heel is that the plot keeps slipping out of Gardiner's control. It's not poorly constructed at all, but it's labyrinthine and convoluted to the point where the pacing gets jerky as different parts of the story get focus and other fall into the background. There's a lack of cohesion, especially in the middle segments where the book – like so many mystery novels before it – sags under the weight of so many rapidly intersecting plot points. The final quarter of the novel really gets back on track, as things start clicking into place in time for the action climax. I like big, complicated plots, but they're awfully difficult to consistently maintain over three hundred and fifty pages. My only other significant gripe is that Gardiner's tendency to slip into cartoonishness – the grab-bag of sneering baddies, Evan careening from one over-the-top encounter to another – sometimes undercuts the serious stuff a little.

A couple of plotting snarls don't make this a bad novel, though. Not by a long shot. Jericho Point, like all the Evan Delaney books, is inventive and funny and quick, but there's a dark undercurrent to it that sets it apart from other exciting thrillers. When Evan is horrifyingly assaulted by two thugs by the side of the road, she suffers from realistic post-traumatic stress. She doesn't shake off such a harrowing experience and bounce fresh-faced to the next adventure like Nancy Drew. Jesse is still haunted by the events of the last book and beyond, even to the point where he seriously considers suicide. Evan's flirtation with sexy fighter pilot Marc isn't a cute subplot, it's a very real and frightening threat to Evan and Jesse's relationship. Gardiner's characters go through insane stuff, but they remain human. That, for me, is perhaps Gardiner's greatest strength as an author: following through on the psychological toll that being protagonists in a crime series takes on her characters. Evan and Jesse are rich, complex characters, and they resonate. I do wish Evan was a bit more flawed at times; she can feel a tiny bit Mary Sue-ish at times, always ready with the perfect quip.
 

The supporting cast are somewhat flimsier than the two protagonists, but there's plenty of depth there, too. Jesse's passive-aggressive family, for example, are so sharply portrayed it seems like they just walked out of a Jonathan Franzen novel (P.J. in particular will make you want to give him a hug and punch him in the face, at the same time). The book's villains are a little too uniformly psychotic for my taste, although the vile Murphy Ming is memorably grotesque. I would have liked more of Sin Jimson, the snaky, manipulative stepdaughter of an aging rock star; she's a character I could imagine popping up again to wreak fresh havoc.
 

Characters aren't the only things Gardiner can write: Evan's narration is laden with pop culture references, playful wordplay, quirky, poetic descriptions and loads of delicious snark. Her dialogue is usually crisp and pleasingly screwball, although when events takes a heavy turn, it hums with tension. And the woman can write suspense and action like nobody's business: the huge final sequence, set on an oil rig, is a nightmarish tour de force of escalating terror. I like my thrillers to go big and wild for the climax, and Meg Gardiner always delivers on that front. She even dispatches one of the novel's bad guys in as gruesome and creative a manner as I've ever encountered in a novel.

 

Jericho Point is not a perfect thriller (it's just a hair too chaotic in its plotting), but it is an absolutely top-drawer one, with strong prose and deeply compelling characters. Meg Gardiner is slowly getting more visibility as an author (particularly after Stephen King's article praising the Delaney series in Entertainment Weekly), and hopefully she'll eventually receive all the attention and accolades she deserves. With Jericho Point, the Evan Delaney series continues to delight, and I'm already looking forward to seeing what Gardiner will throw at Evan and Jesse in the next volume.

April

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare, 2008

I pretty much enjoyed City of Bones, the first novel in the popular Mortal Instruments series, despite some pretty glaring flaws and some underwhelming prose. It was a fast, entertaining read - typical YA urban fantasy, but just original enough to keep your interest.

The sequel, City of Ashes, picks up where the first book left off: Clary and Jace are horrified to discover that they are in fact siblings, despite their strong mutual attraction. While they struggle with their difficult relationship – and a hard-nosed Shadowhunter investigator known as the Inquisitor – their wicked father Valentine gathers a demonic army and prepares for an all-out war with the Shadowhunters.

The fact is, there are a lot of problems with this book. A lot. Perhaps my biggest complaint is that the pacing is surprisingly poor. Whatever else you could say about it, City of Bones at least moved at a good clip. As soon as you tired of what was going on, there would be an action scene, or a plot twist, or something to grab your interest. There are long stretches of City of Ashes that are just plain boring (and this is not a typical gripe of mine - I have a long attention span). The story is not nearly as intricate as the previous book's; nor does it rely much on backstory or character development. It's a very straightforward supernatural narrative that plays out like an episode of Buffy or Supernatural stretched out to novel-length. Valentine has a – relatively simple – evil plan, which he. . . implements. Not a lot of complexity there.

What's really infuriating about the plot (for me, anyway) is that none of our heroes seem very proactive about hunting down the Big Bad and putting a stop to his fiendish designs, at least not until the climax. In time-honored YA tradition, the adults and authority figures are utterly useless, and waste all their time being nasty to the kids, when they should be out doing something useful. Unlike a Harry Potter novel, there's no real mystery going on; it just seems like the characters are too self-absorbed to put two and two together.

So for most of the book, we get a ton of character interaction, which is. . . a mixed bag. Clare has really only written two genuinely three-dimensional characters: Jace and Simon, both of whom get quite a lot to do in Ashes. Jace spends most of the book angsting, torn between the Clave and his newfound father. Not to mention his conflicting feelings about Clary. Clare deserves credit for using an extremely tricky concept - incestuous feelings - as the framework of her story, but she doesn't handle it especially well and you know that she'll eventually use an easy out to deal with the situation.

Simon, in what is arguably the novel's most interesting plot thread, goes from being the regular guy to becoming a powerful and blood-hungry vampire. Since Clare is far from a marvelous writer, neither Jace's nor Simon's character arcs is incredibly well-done, but they're both competent, and decent enough to hold your interest. I dig Magnus Bane, the smart-aleck, bisexual warlock, too; he brings a welcome sense of color to the cast, even if his romance with Alec is oddly handled.

On the other hand we have Clary, ostensibly the protagonist, who is a truly dull and tiresome character. She has very little personality and not much of an arc, and yet the rest of the characters are all obsessed with her. Textbook Mary Sue, in other words. Although she does develop an unusual power - which is, full disclosure, pretty cool - she spends most of the novel be so useless. The supporting cast is okay for the most part; just kind of same-y. Characters like the grandiose Valentine or the (seemingly) malevolent Inquisitor should jump off the page, but instead they come across as fairly flat copies of more interesting characters in more interesting books.

Clare's writing is still readable enough, I suppose, in a crappy kind of way. The constant stream of overblown similes and metaphors is grating - by the end of the book, I was gritting my teeth every time I came across one. She uses all the clichés you can think of: dopey adverbs, over-the-top descriptions of things like eyes and sunsets and light, emotions described as physical sensations, generally in the stomach, heart or throat. The one big bright spot in her writing is her one-liners. I'm not gonna lie: the woman can write verbal humor very well. A lot of the character's lines are laugh-out-loud funny or close, especially Jace and Magnus. I just wish the rest of her writing was as good as her quips.

The climax, which is a big faux-Harry Potter finale complete with a huge battle and numerous dramatic revelations, is definitely the most entertaining part of the book; it's a mess, but there's so many rampaging demons and operatic confrontations that it's at least really fun to read. It almost made the long slog of the novel's bloated second act worth it. Almost. Honestly, if I didn't already own the next two books in the series, I might not have bothered seeking them out. Since I do have them, I will probably read them. I can only hope that City of Glass is a step up from this one.

61 Hours by Lee Child, 2010

Honestly, Lee Child is so good it's almost boring. While I could rank his Jack Reacher novels in some semblance of best-to-worst (at least, what I think are best-to-worst), but there's no denying that I've never read a bad Reacher novel, or even a truly weak Reacher novel. 61 Hours is another gem, a finely honed thriller by a man who seems incapable of writing a bad novel. Sure, the series pretty much always follows a clear formula, but it's a formula that I happen to adore, so if it ain't broke, why fix it?

Hours finds our hero onboard a tour bus when it crashes in a small town deep in the frigid South Dakota winter. Reacher quickly finds out that sleepy little Bolton is in the middle of a crisis: a respected local woman, the key witness in an upcoming trial, is being targeted for assassination by a group of methamphetamine-peddling bikers. Reacher naturally can't resist helping out, but unbeknownst to him, a criminal mastermind is coming to town and Reacher has only sixty-one hours before something very big goes down.

61 Hours is fairly conventional in terms of plot. The small town, the criminal organization, quirky villain, local cops, military connection, etcetera. It's fairly standard for Child at this point, but he's so confident and his storytelling are so finely honed that the boilerplate nature of the story didn't really bother me. The novel is a bit of a slow burn for a Reacher book - not much action until the climax, a lot of rising tension during the middle section There are the requisite twists and turns, but most of them are fairly predictable, by Child standards. The two things that really set it apart from the pack are the ticking-clock set-up and the weather.

The ticking-clock thing was fine (I neither loved nor hated it, and while I don't think it added a ton to the book, it didn't annoy me either), but the weather descriptions were kind of fantastic. Child makes the elements - in this case, unbelievable cold - a real character in the story. This is a book that truly makes you shiver while you read it, and the weather serves a real function in the plot, as it brings Reacher down to earth a little bit. He may be superhuman, but even he can't do much against minus-thirty temperatures. Child's hard-bitten prose is more than up to the challenge of describing the frigid South Dakota environment. As always, he nails the little details that make it convincing.

One of my stock complaints about the Reacher series is that the supporting characters are often flat and lifeless. While that is still somewhat the case here, Reacher has some great interactions in 61 Hours. There's a lot of Child's incredibly subtle character development going on here; Reacher is confronted with not one, but two people who can see through his veneer of unflappable competency. There's one phone conversation late in the book that might be Reacher at his most vulnerable. And hey, I actually enjoyed the Obligatory Love Interest, and I kind of hope she shows up again. The villain, a calculating ,diminutive drug lord nicknamed Plato, is a lot of fun, too. I'm an avowed fan of over-the-top Reacher villains, and Plato is definitely that. His final confrontation with Reacher is awesomely creative and deliciously nutty.

That actually applies to the climax as a whole, too, which might be the biggest-scale conclusion that Child has dreamed up yet (if not the most thrilling). I loved the fact that we got an honest-to-God cliffhanger that seems to offer up the possibility of Reacher's demise. While I know that he's not dead (two more books in the series have been released) Child sells it straight-facedly enough to make it work. I look forward to seeing how Reacher got out of a dilemma that Wile. E Coyote would have a hard time surviving. Maybe a refrigerator?

Complaints? Well, there's the supporting character thing (I just wish they were more colorful, that's all!). And the fact that were some noticeably far-fetched contrivances in the plot, even more so than usual, as well as some time-wasting detours that are obviously just there to fill up space, or provide a phony, end-of-chapter cliffhanger. In Reacher novels with busier stories, this is rarely an issue. Overall, though, 61 Hours is just another awesome entry in an increasingly awesome series. Not, perhaps, my favorite, or even in the very highest echelon, but it does carry the distinction of being the Reacher novel that has made me shiver the most.

Savages by Don Winslow

Savages by Don Winslow, 2010

Lado and Hector take them to a big date farm out near Indio and put them in a shed where they keep tractors and shit. The two sit on the dirt floor leaning against the corrugated-tin wall and they develop verbal diarrhea. Keep shitting on and on about how there were two of them, a shotgun and two pistols, real pros. . .

Lado already knows they were pros-- they knew when, where, and what, and they knew to look for the GPS.

"Two of them? You sure?" Lado asks.

They're really sure.

Two tall guys.

Lado thinks that's interesting.

Wearing masks.

"What kind of masks?"

Yanqui television hosts.

Jay Leno and. . .

"Letterman," the driver says.

The other one got the car make and license plate.

"It's a wonder," Lado says, "that neither of you two got hurt at all."

Very fortunate, they agree.

Yeah, well, that ain't gonna last. ---- (page 182)

Savages is a wickedly twisted and brilliant piece of crime fiction, and a sick little experiment on readers to boot. I love amorality and antiheroes, novels where good and evil are varying shades of gray. To say that Savages' morality is gray is to a massive understatement. I'm not sure I've ever read another book where every single main character is, to some extent, a villain, or at least someone who has made terrible choices. Winslow's style can only be described as unique and his plotting is brutal, intricate and complex. Here's a book that you have to chew on for a while before you can decide how you feel about it.

The protagonists (not heroes, but protagonists) of the novel are Ben and Chon, best buddies who run a massive marijuana ring in southern California. Their aim--well, Ben's aim, really--is to run the most peaceful operation they can. When a powerful Mexican cartel looking to expand its business instigates a hostile takeover of their business, Ben and Chon are faced with a choice: give up or wage war against a far larger and more powerful enemy.

The plot quickly becomes much more twisted than that, as both sides begin a riveting game of chicken in order to feel the other out. Dirty tactics, power plays and some highly spirited negotiations ensue. Winslow gives every character dimension and complexity, from the brutal head of the Baja Cartel to a corrupt and pathetic DEA agent. As hard as it is at first to root for a band of marijuana dealers, Ben and Chon are hard not to empathize with, even as they are forced to be more and more ruthless and cruel. O, their shared girlfriend and a pot-smoking hipster, is likewise both difficult to like and difficult not to like. Winslow is damn good at that--forcing you to understand or even admire some truly bad people. Grey morality is the name of the game in Savages.

Winslow's prose is bizarre: a hybrid of gonzo poeticism, clipped Elmore Leonard-style dialogue and terse, action-movie bursts of violence and action. Some chapters are only a word or two long (seriously), and some are in script format. And the amazing thing is, it works. Sure, there are a couple of times that Winslow goes too far into stylized nonsense and comes off as pretentious, but for the most part the story and the style complement each other perfectly. Winslow can be a damn funny writer, too; his humor is as dark and sharp as the rest of the story.

The climax, when it comes, is moving, riveting and oddly graceful. The biggest plot twist is completely terrific-- surprising, but obvious in retrospect. By the end, Winslow has elevated the novel into a surprisingly affecting tragedy. Ben, Chon and O are not heroes by any means, but they were people looking for some modicum of peace in a savage world.

NEXT UP: Plenty of new reviews coming, starting with a brand-new Jeeves novel.

Tripwire by Lee Child

Tripwire by Lee Child, 1999

The danger had ebbed and flowed like a tide for years. He had spent long periods certain that it was about to wash over him at any time. And then long periods certain it would never reach him at all. Sometimes, the deadening sensation of time made him feel safe, because thirty years is an eternity. But other times it felt like the blink of an eye. Sometimes he waited for the first call on an hourly basis. Planning, sweating, but always knowing he could be forced to run at any moment.

He had played it through his head a million times. The way he expected it, the first call would come in maybe a month before the second call. He would use that month to prepare. He would tie up the loose ends, close things down, cash in, transfer assets, settle scores. Then when the second call came in, he would take off. Immediately. No hesitation. Just get the hell out, and stay the hell out.

But the way it happened, the two calls came in on the same day. The second call came first. The nearer tripwire was breached an hour before the farther one. And Hook Hobie didn't run. He abandoned thirty years of careful planning and stayed to fight it out. ---- (pages 2-3)

Tripwire is the earliest Jack Reacher novel I've read so far (only the third), and although I have yet to read a bad Lee Child thriller, it's in the top tier of the series. It's not Child at his most rip-roaring, but it features perhaps the finest villain he's written yet, a huge chunk of character development for Reacher and a plot that, while not lightning-fast, ramps up the tension to nearly unbearable levels.

The story begins with Reacher digging pools in the Florida Keys, saving up money and enjoying his anonymity. When a private investigator named Costello comes looking for him, Reacher's inclination is to hide. Until Costello turns up dead. Feeling responsible, Reacher follows Costello's trail back to New York, where a woman from his past, a deadly secret and a vicious, hook-handed moneylender await him.

Child's plots are usually big, sprawling and complicated, but he tries a somewhat different approach with Tripwire, which has a basically simple structure with only one major twist. A big piece of the book is told from the perspectives of characters other than Reacher, so the reader is nearly always in the superior position. Instead of intricate plotting, Tripwire winds up the story like an old-fashioned noir thriller, the suspense generated by the strong undercurrent of menace and unpredictability that comes from the book's villains.

Hook Hobie, the sadistic, intelligent, one-handed villain, is definitely the most memorable thing about Tripwire. It's nice to see one of the more over-the-top villains again, since the later books in the series have had more generic baddies. Hobie is anything but generic: he's both terrifyingly larger than life and strangely human. Most importantly, he feels like a genuine threat, which is hard for Child to pull off with a hero as infallible as Reacher.

While I initially had my reservations about the lengthy subplot in which Hobie abducts and terrorizes a CEO and his wife, I ultimately found it to be an excellent way to make Hobie seem powerful and competent. Many thriller villains spend the entire novel always just failing to kill the hero or carry out their wicked plot; Hobie spends the book succeeding at nearly everything due to his common sense and meticulous planning. Child seems to almost admire his efficiency and ability to get things done. He's not afraid to make Hobie just a tiny bit sympathetic, too. The sequence in which he narrates Hobie's one-handed routine for getting ready in the morning is absolutely devoid of any obvious appeals to pity, but it's impossible not to see Hobie as a human being rather than a cardboard psychopath.

Reacher sort of does his own thing for most of the novel, crossing paths only rarely with the villains. His main arc has to do with his increasing discontent with the drifter lifestyle. Tripwire takes place only two years after he left the service, and he's not quite as disconnected and solitary as he is in later installments. His relationship with Jodie Garber, the daughter of his commanding officer, shows him a new option: stability, normalcy, an ordinary life with a car and a job and a lawn. The romantic subplot--which is, as always, inevitable--is fine, and I would probably have enjoyed it more if I hadn't already read what feels like the same storyline half a dozen times. Jodie is the usual Reacher love interest: intelligent, mature, spunky, beautiful (I'm starting to suspect that Lee Child himself has a type), and most importantly, a good foil.

What sets the Reacher/Jodie relationship apart is the way it gradually becomes more normal and open as the book progresses, eventually culminating in a shocker ending of sorts: they stay together at the end of the book. That is correct. Jack Reacher ends the book with a house and a steady girlfriend that he cares about. While this state of things obviously doesn't last, it's still the first major break in formula that I've encountered in a Reacher novel. Between the spellbinding final duel between Reacher and Hobie (one of the most intense scenes in any Reacher book ever) and the cliffhanger-ish ending, Tripwire has one of the strongest conclusions to a Child novel that I've read yet. I can't wait to find out what happens next, even though it'll all eventually end up the same as always. There's something comforting in that, I think.

NEXT UP: Things have been slow around here, and will probably continue to be a bit slow; I've been busy writing my own novel and haven't had much time to read. But the next book up is an interesting one: Don Winslow's Savages.

Mission Canyon by Meg Gardiner

Mission Canyon by Meg Gardiner, 2008

People ask me whose fault it was. Who caused the accident? Where did the blame lie--on reckless driving, blinding sunlight, a sharp curve in the road? Hidden in their questions is a deeper query. Did Jesse bring it on himself? Was he careless? Perhaps he rode his bike into the middle of the road. Perhaps he insulted God. Maybe that's why he won't be walking me down the aisle, they imply.

What people want to hear, I think, is that the accident was fate, or foolishness. The hit-and-run killed Isaac Sandoval outright. It left Jesse Blackburn broken on the hillside, struggling to reach his friend's body. And people wanted me to tell them that yes, it was the victims' fault. Jesse should have done something different, should have looked over his shoulder or flossed his teeth every day. What they want me to say is no, of course it could never happen to them. They want reassurance, and I can't give it to them.

When they ask me whose fault it was, I've always said: the driver's. It was the fault of the man who sat behind the wheel of a satin-gray BMW, arcing up a narrow road into the foothills of Santa Barbara, with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand caressing the hair of the woman whose head bobbed above his lap. It was the fault of the man getting the blow job. It was the fault of the guy who got away.

That's what I always told people. Until now.---- (page 1)

I hesitate to say that Mission Canyon is a perfect thriller, but for me, it comes darn close. It ticks every single one of my boxes, fulfills every one of my requirements for what makes a great thriller. Gardiner is one sharp, funny, incisive writer, and she knows how to spin a twisty, nail-biting plot. Her characters are a terrific mixture of quirky and totally human, and unlike China Lake, the first book in the Evan Delaney series, the villain is both unexpected and truly scary. This is one of the best mysteries I've read in a long time.

The book's plot stems from a seemingly simple incident: while biking in Santa Barbara, best friends Jesse Blackburn and Isaac Sandoval are mowed down by a reckless driver. Isaac is killed and Jesse is paralyzed from the waist down. Years later, the driver, a white-collar criminal wanted for embezzlement, returns to Santa Barbara, dredging up Jesse's guilt and desire for revenge. As strange new facts come to life and a pack of ruthless gangsters come to town, Jesse's fiancee Evan is drawn into an impenetrable and deadly tangle of shocking secrets, far-reaching cover-ups and cold-blooded murder.

I'll get my only main criticism out there at the start: the opening chapters are a slippery info dump. Gardiner introduces too many characters with too many unlikely connections in a small space of time, and it comes off as a little frenzied. That's okay, though, because once the clumsy introductions are past, the plot takes off like a rocket and never lets up.

Like all good mysteries, Mission Canyon's center is layers of character interactions. Jesse's barely controlled rage, his intense survivors' guilt and his burning hatred of the man responsible for his paralysis comes across beautifully, as do Evan's complex feelings about marrying someone who is handicapped. Their relationship, nicely established in China Lake, is really put through the wringer in this installment; their no-holds-barred arguments are truer and deeper than you might expect from characters in a thriller. Jesse's friendship with Isaac's brother Adam is another example of Gardiner's ability to depict strikingly real relationships in the middle of a blisteringly fast-paced, high-concept narrative.

Not all of Gardiner's characterizations are as true to life; she's not above writing a caricature. In China Lake, the caricatures were the villains, a device that just didn't work well. Here, we have Evan's cousin Taylor, a glitzy, loud-mouthed lingerie saleswoman from the Midwest. Taylor may be cartoonish, but she's a lot of fun, injected in the narrative both as comic relief and as a sly way to display the kind of reaction that Evan's family might have to her marrying someone disabled. Thankfully, most of the novel's characters have more depth than Taylor; in fact, most of them have multiple layers that are peeled away before the end. Perhaps most importantly, for a thriller, the villains are all believably threatening and scary. Mickey Yago, the cold-blooded leader of i-heist, would have been an effective Big Bad, but in a book as packed as this one, he's merely a decoy.

The real villain is only unmasked at the novel's end, and there are a hell of a lot of twists before that revelation. This is one of those great plots that only clicks together when we have all the facts. Gardiner doesn't do predictable, and it's been a long time since a mystery writer has made me jump through so many hoops. I'm usually fairly adept at figuring out the structure of a story, but Mission Canyon had me on the edge of my seat nearly the entire time. And I did not see the endgame coming, even though everything fit together close to perfectly. Putting together a plot that good must have been incredibly difficult. While not everything in the story is completely plausible (a chase scene set in an old church is a bit of a stretch), Gardiner accomplishes the thing that every high-concept writer has to do: convince us that it is. Her characters are so well drawn and her pace so breathless that I rarely considered how delightfully nutty the book is in places. Her action scenes can be over-the-top, but she sells her characters so well as real people that they work anyway.

By the end, Gardiner has woven a complex and perfectly paced thriller with both an emotional punch and a serious funnybone. The way she blends the light and the dark, the pulse-pounding suspense and the quiet, searing emotion, is absolutely masterful. Mission Canyon is without a doubt one of the best mysteries I've read in a long time, and I can't wait to see where the series goes next. The further adventures of Evan and Jesse are looking awfully enticing.

NEXT UP: The cheerful hit YA novel, The Book Thief, which is a real knee-slapping good time. Not.

The Affair by Lee Child

The Affair by Lee Child, 2011

I have arrested many people, often in groups larger than the one in front of me, but I have never been very good at it. The best arrests run on pure bluster, and I get self-conscious if I have to rant and rave. Better for me to land an early sucker punch, to shut them down right at the very beginning. Except that shouting freeze freeze freeze makes me a little self-conscious, too. The words come out a little tentative. Almost like a request.

But I had with me the best conversation-stopper ever made: a pump-action shotgun. At the cost of one unfired shell, I could make the kind of sound that would freeze any three men to any three spots in the world.

The most intimidating sound ever heard.

Crunch crunch.

My ejected shell hit the leaves at my feet and the three guys froze solid.

I said, "Now the rifles hit the deck."

Normal voice, normal pitch, normal tone.

The sandy-haired guy dropped his rifle. He was pretty damn quick about it. Then went the older guy and last of the three came the wiry one.

"Stand still now," I said. "Don't give me a reason."

Normal voice, normal pitch, normal tone.

They stood reasonably still. Their arms came up a little, out from their sides, slowly, and they ended up a small distance from their bodies, where they held them. They spread their fingers. No doubt they spread their toes inside their boots and sneakers and shoes. Anything to appear unarmed and undangerous.

I said, "And now you take three big paces backward."

They complied, all three guys, all three taking exaggerated stumbling steps, and all three ending up more than a body's length from their rifles.

I said, "And now you turn around."---- (pages 309-310)

The last Jack Reacher novel to deal with Reacher's background as an MP was The Enemy, a fine thriller in its own way, but probably one of my least favorite of the Reacher series (if not my least favorite). Cool insight into Reacher's character, but kind of a snoozy plot without any of the fireworks we expect from Reacher's civilian adventures. The Affair is a direct follow-up to The Enemy and its ending leads directly into the very first book in the series begins. This is the one that fans have been waiting for, the book that shows Reacher's initial estrangement from the military and the beginning of his life as a mysterious nomad.

For an installment with such significance attached to it, The Affair is a surprisingly typical Reacher novel. Unlike in The Enemy, Reacher is on his own for most of the book like he is in the rest of the series, and the basic plot could have been easily transposed to his post-military days. The ingredients that we expect to see--strange murder, weird little town, thuggish locals, flavor-of-the-month local love interest--are all present, and despite a neat in media res opening and the saga-begins ending, everything goes down pretty much exactly the way you'd expect.

Several years after the events of The Enemy, Jack Reacher is called in to investigate a sensitive matter: a woman has been brutally murdered in a town bordering an Army base in Mississippi. The base and its soldiers are crucial pieces in a secret military conflict (Kosovo), and the Army can't afford to have the cover blown by an investigation. Reacher will pose as a homeless ex-Army drifter (!) and attempt to uncover the killer. If it's a civilian, that is. Naturally, things get complicated fast and the bodies begin to stack up, and Reacher, never one to follow orders, sets out to topple the massive conspiracy that someone has set in place. Even if it costs him his career, or his life.

So, yeah. Business as usual for our boy Jack.

As always, Child has written a real page-turner and the book is solidly constructed, despite a premise that borders on flimsy. The opening couple of chapters do a good job of establishing suspense and the way they meet up with the narrative halfway through is cool. As usual, the pace is actually fairly slow, ratcheting up the tension to nearly unbearable heights by the end. There's not much that's shocking or particularly original about the conclusion to the mystery, but Child is always good at obscuring the obvious truth until the very end.

The Love Interest Subplot is a tiresome and expected element of nearly every Reacher novel. I've gotten heartily sick of Reacher always running into some runway-ready cop or lawyer. The relationship only ever lasts a single book, so there's no lasting effect on Reacher. I will admit that The Affair's love interest, former MP and sheriff Elizabeth Deveraux, is a likable character and a good match for Reacher. The relationship is well-written and engaging enough, yet the fact that we know it goes nowhere makes it feel like irrelevant filler. I started to get excited when, mid-book, we began to get hints that Elizabeth was the serial killer Reacher was tracking. Having the love interest be the villain would be a series first (at least for the books I've read so far) and would be a very interesting end to the book. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a cleverly planted misdirection, and the actual killer is a lot less unusual. Reacher and Elizabeth part ways at the end, and that's that.

Although the small town is a common Child setting, he still does a good job of painting the world of Carter Crossing. It's a tired, dusty little place that depends entirely on the military base to sustain its fragile economy. Even though its an isolated small town, it still has a wealthy part of town (predominantly white), and a poor part of town (predominantly black). The quiet way that Child deals with the racial issues simmering underneath the town is a good example of just how effortlessly he nails the weird little corners of America that the series inhabits. I can't help but wish his approach towards the military was as subtle. I don't think his portrayal of the Army is one of the strong points of The Affair. He paints the Army as a vast, secretive, vaguely nefarious organization run by a bunch of trigger-happy assholes who don't hesitate to either commit or cover up crimes. While I don't think this is an accurate picture of the real-life military, I would be willing to accept a negative portrayal if it was more skillfully or convincingly written.

Furthermore, I think that the extent of Reacher's cynicism and disillusionment with the Army is too far along by the time The Affair begins. The novel should have shown how Reacher's faith in the military was betrayed, how he discovered that the organization he had spent his entire life serving was not the place for him. Some of that comes through, but Reacher's forced resignation at the end feels inevitable and lacks the emotional punch it should have, considering its importance in the series overall.

Better are the little touches of origin story mythmaking that are laced throughout the book: Reacher discovering the joys of public transportation, setting up a Western Union account, buying a folding toothbrush. These moments are pure undiluted awesome. The Affair could perhaps use a bit more of this at times, but it's an overall solid outing--satisfying, absorbing and as well paced as always. No thriller author I've ever read keeps the pages turning as reliably as Child, even when he's not in top form. The Affair is not a top-notch Reacher adventure (not quite twisty or exciting enough), but it's fairly satisfying both as a prequel to the main series and as a thriller in its own right.

NEXT UP: Dan Simmons's Hyperion.

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich, 1994

"Damn court hearings are a waste of time," Earling said. "I'm seventy-six years old. You think they're gonna send some seventy-six-year-old guy to prison because he flashed his stuff around?"

I sincerely hoped so. Seeing Earling naked was enough to make me turn celibate. "I need to take you downtown. How about you go put some clothes on."

"I don't wear clothes. God brought me into the world naked, and that's the way I'm going out."

"Okay by me, but in the meantime I wish you'd get dressed."

"The only way I'm going with you is naked."

I took out my cuffs and snapped them on his wrists.

"Police brutality. Police brutality," he yelled.

"Sorry to disappoint you," I said. "I'm not a cop."

"Well what are you?"

"I'm a bounty hunter."

"Bounty hunter brutality. Bounty hunter brutality."

I went to the hall closet, found a full-length raincoat, and buttoned him into it.

"I'm not going with you," he said, standing rigid, his hands cuffed under the coat. "You can't make me go."

"Listen, Grandpa," I said, "either you go peaceably or I'll gas you and drag you out by your heels."

I couldn't believe I was saying this to some poor senior citizen with a snail dick. I was appalled at myself, but what the hell, it was worth $200.--- (pages 266-267)

Stephanie Plum is in trouble: she's been laid off from her job as a lingerie buyer, the repo men have taken her car and her rent is almost due. In desperation, Stephanie calls on her cousin Vinnie, the owner of a bail bond firm in Trenton, New Jersey. Thanks to a little blackmail, Stephanie now has a new job: bounty hunter. With no experience and no idea how to gain any, she has to track down Joe Morelli, a local cop accused of murder. Stephanie has a history with Morelli, but she assures herself that it's just business. She gets ten grand if she can arrest Morelli in a week--and stay alive on the mean streets of Trenton, amongst criminals, cops, hookers and one very nasty prizefighter.

Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series has, over the last ten years or so, become hugely popular despite getting relatively little critical attention, either negative or positive. She's one of those authors (like James Patterson or Nora Roberts) who's pretty much ubiquitous on the bestseller lists and bookstore shelves. Her Stephanie Plum series has a cool premise and a devoted fan base, so I zipped through the series' first volume, One for the Money.

I didn't expect much, but I was mildly surprised. The novel is a little dopey in places, the beginning is sort of terrible and Evanovich's writing is just okay, but overall it's a surprisingly solid blend of chick lit comedy, romance novel and mystery/thriller. A shaky start notwithstanding, Evanovich is good enough at the three main areas of interest to put together a highly readable novel that introduces a series that could be a lot of fun.

Evanovich's main success is definitely her protagonist. Stephanie Plum is the kind of character that a lot of romance novels are built around (plucky, sarcastic, secretly vulnerable, just quirky enough to be interesting, Everygirl enough to be relatable). Mysteries and thrillers, however, usually have darker, moodier heroes, which is why Stephanie is so much fun to read about--think Kinsey Millhone with less experience and more lip gloss. She's the kind of comfortable character that a book like this needs to center it. Her progression from novice bounty hunter to gun-wielding badass is, for the most part, pretty believable and there's usually enough balance between her competent moments and her doofus ones to be satisfying.

Stephanie's motives are more problematic than her characteristics. Evanovich works hard through the first fifty pages to convince us that Stephanie is truly desperate and the only reason she takes the bounty hunter job is for the money. Evanovich never really sells the idea that an ordinary woman would risk her life repeatedly for a mere ten thousand dollars, and then keep working as an apprehension agent even after she is shot, beaten, attacked, bombed and almost raped. Obviously, for story purposes Stephanie has to keep working for Vinnie, but the motivation and circumstances seem highly contrived, especially during the beginning chapters, where Evanovich tries to make way too many implausibilities sound reasonable.

The series' humor is probably its most-hyped element, but Evanovich seems unlikely to topple Helen Fielding or Terry Pratchett any time soon. Humor and wit is a central part of the novel's appeal (most of it because of Stephanie's wisecracking narration), but for the most part I found it more charming than hilarious. Evanovich seems to be at her funniest when she's breezy and not trying too hard; the sequences that are calculated displays of sitcom-y madcappery, like the Plum family's inappropriate behavior, or Grandma Mazur accidentally shooting a turkey at the dinner table, feel kind of forced.

The romance-with-Morelli plot is not the novel's strongest point, either. Again, we have contrivances that are very old and tired, like the man and woman who supposedly hate each other working together. It's a device that still succeeds sometimes, but Evanovich plays it pretty straight. It's a good thing for her that their dialogue is genuinely amusing, and that Morelli walks the line between being a nice guy and being a real jerk. It's an agreeable storyline, but not a highly compelling one. My favorite moment is near the end, when Stephanie grows tired of Morelli's condescension and one-ups him in a highly satisfying way. I'm less enthusiastic about hints that a love triangle will develop between Stephanie, Morelli and Stephanie's bounty hunter mentor, Ranger. The will-they-won't-they thing is already hackneyed enough.

Better than the romance is the mystery/thriller element. Due to the emphasis on the series' comedic and romantic angle, I expected a flimsy, lightweight main plot. Evanovich instead delivers a pretty well-constructed story that's equal parts whodunit mystery and action thriller. Despite the book's overall light tone, the book's Big Bad, Benito Ramirez, manages to be fairly scary, injecting a real sense of danger in what otherwise have been more of a romp. The whodunit mystery segments are weaker overall than the more action-oriented parts-- it's not too hard to guess the evil mastermind, though the whole dastardly plot is a little more difficult to piece together. In any case, the main plot provides a terrific frame for everything else to rest on.

Perhaps the book's most impressive achievment is its ability to balance the seemingly opposing parts of the story. For a mix of comedy and thriller to work, there has to be a succesful blend of the light and the dark. Too much light, and there's nothing at stake. Too much dark, and the light elements seem uncomfortable and awkward. For the most part, Evanovich nails the tone, finding a happy medium between the extremes. While One for the Money is not shooting to the top of my list of favorite guilty-pleasure novels, it's definitely a smooth, entertaining read with a memorably unusual heroine.

NEXT UP: A trio of Nero Wolfe novellas.

Without Fail by Lee Child

Without Fail by Lee Child, 2002

"Better just to walk away now," he said.

They didn't, like he knew they wouldn't. They responded to the challenge by crowding in toward him, imperceptibly, just a fractional muscle movement that eased their body weight forward rather than backward. They need to be laid up for a week, he thought. Cheekbones, probably. A sharp blow, depressed fractures, maybe temporary loss of conciousness, bad headaches. Nothing too severe. He waited until the wind gusted again and raised his right hand and swept his hair back behind his left ear. Then he kept his hand there, with his elbow poised high, like a thought had just struck him.

"Can you guys swim?" he asked.

It would have taken superhuman self-control not to glance at the ocean. They weren't superhuman. They turned their heads like robots. He clubbed the right-hand guy in the face with his raised elbow and cocked it again and hit the left-hand guy as his head snapped back toward the sound of his buddy's bones breaking. They went down on the boards together and their rolls of quarters split open and coins rolled everywhere and piroutted small silver circles and collided and fell over, heads and tails. Reacher coughed in the bitter cold and stood still and replayed it in his head: two guys, two seconds, two blows, game over. You've still got the good stuff. He breathed hard and wiped cold sweat from his forehead. Then he walked away. Stepped off the pier onto the boardwalk and went looking for Western Union.--- (page 19)

One of the things that kept cropping up in my mind while reading Without Fail was the durability of Lee Child's formula. After reading six or seven of his Jack Reacher novels, recurring patterns clearly start to form. In truth, most of the Reacher thrillers are pretty similar in structure. The setting, characters and details all change, but there's usually a comforting sense of familiarity to the way things are going to go down. We know from the start that it's going to end with Jack Reacher kicking some ass and then riding off into the sunset. It speaks to Child's grasp of storytelling and his terrific sense of pacing and tension that the ending is always white-knuckle anyway.

Another sign of Child's superiority is his ability to do new things with his basic formula, keeping the series feeling fresh even when very little about the novel's skeleton changes. Without Fail, like all of its predecessors, is a fantastic thriller/mystery with a twisty plot, lean writing and terrific action scenes. But it also contains some very finely wrought bits of character development and world-building that Child sneaks in with such finesse that it's easy to overlook, what with all the shooting and punching and such.

The plot: Jack Reacher is in Atlantic City when he's approached by an old ex-girlfriend of his brother's: Secret Service agent M.E. Froelich. Froelich has an unusual proposition for Reacher. She wants him to assassinate the Vice President-elect, Brook Armstrong. Froelich is running a security audit and wants to see if her system can be breached by a professional. However, a team of real assassins are closing in on Armstrong, and it falls to Reacher and Froelich to foil their plan and save the Vice President-- who knows more about his would-be killers than he's letting on.

The novel's basic premise is a little rickety, especially when the Secret Service takes on Reacher as a consultant, immediately making him privy to all of their classified intelligence. The novel's midsection is also a bit humdrum-- a lot of running around between the Secret Service office and various hotels and restaurants, not a lot of action, a couple of too-convenient plot devices. Having Reacher actively working for law enforcement is an interesting and atypical move, but it also makes us wait until the end for the usual sense of vigilante justice.

A slower pace isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it gives the novel time to develop a highly interesting subplot: Reacher dealing with the death of his brother and coming to terms with their difficult relationship through the lens of Froelich's memories. Reacher's family is a thematic undercurrent that has subtly run through the series (most notably in The Enemy) and Child prises apart Reacher's emotional armor with exceptional delicacy and understatement. Like many good writers, he lets the moments of emotional revelation come in dialogue rather than in description, and there are several conversations between Reacher and Froelich that are surprising in their emotional impact. The storyline's main Achilles heel is that Froelich herself is a fairly bland character, and having her serve as the Obligatory Love Interest feels both boring and a little cheap.

Much more interesting than Froelich is Frances Neagley, who makes her first appearance in the series here (she also shows up in Bad Luck and Trouble, a few books into the series). Violent, damaged, smart and insightful, Neagely is my favorite recurring character so far. She's one of the rare characters that is truly presented as Reacher's intellectual and tactical equal. It's a lot more interesting to give Reacher a potential love interest who, like him, is an emotionally scarred warrior (he's had way too many tough-but-vulnerable flings over the course of the series). Child keeps their relationship fairly low-key, not hinting too strongly at a romantic connection. Hopefully theirs is a relationship that will be explored further.

Without Fail is not the most dynamically plotted of the Reacher novels; the clues and twists are well-placed and deployed with Child's usual verve, but there's little that's highly shocking. Child seems to be setting up his bowling pins a bit too carefully in the opening segments. The novel hums along entertainingly until a big twist in the narrative about three-quarters of the way through. From there, things get kicked into high gear and yes, the finale is, as always, something special. This time the showdown takes place in a remote, snowbound Wyoming town. The last forty pages are a little masterpiece of building tension and the climax, while not as over-the-top as some, is masterful. I don't think I've ever read an author as accomplished at this kind of sequence as Child. I also liked the fact that the villains were not professional killers or assassins (although they're certainly deadly enough).

The parameters of the series are a bit too clear for my taste, it's true. I would love it if Child branched out a little more, exploring different stories and trying different methods of telling them. He could also work on more interesting supporting characters; there are several in Without Fail who make next to no impact, including the crucial character of Froelich. There have been encouraging signs throughout the series that Child is indeed trying out different things, such as Without Fail's surprisingly emotional subplot.

But let's face it: with a formula this rock-solid he doesn't really need to try new things. Child has already found a structure that more or less guarantees excellent thrillers, and Without Fail is another great one, despite a couple of saggy sections. I suppose the old ain't-broke-don't-fix-it adage applies. When the you-know-what is hitting the fan, very few writers can deliver the pulse-pounding tension and suspense like Lee Child. And even though I usually talk up the action and thriller elements, his writing is sometimes disarmingly sharp and insightful, even a bit poetic, in a hard-boiled sort of way. Good suspense doesn't really work unless you care, and Child does a wonderful job of making you care about where it all ends up, even though you know it'll end the way it always does: the victorious, lonely Jack Reacher taking a bus out of town.

NEXT UP: Mario Puzo's modern classic The Godfather.

The Enemy by Lee Child

The Enemy by Lee Child, 2004

Lee Child's Jack Reacher series is really a very odd one when you stop and think about it. There are no recurring locations and precious few recurring characters. The series focuses like a laser on one thing only, and that thing is Jack Reacher. To an extent, the entire series is a lengthy character study on the subject of Reacher, who, luckily, is an endlessly fascinating subject.

The Enemy is the first novel in the series to take place entirely in Jack Reacher's past as a military police officer. My all-time favorite Child novel, Persuader, featured an excellent and lengthy flashback to this same time period. For series fans, it's a wonderful opportunity for some insight into everyone's favorite badass drifter, as well as being yet another kinetic thriller/mystery story.

The book begins very early in the morning on New Year's Day, 1990. Jack Reacher has just been mysteriously assigned to a position on a sleepy North Carolina base when a two-star general turns up dead in a local motel. The general appears to have been meeting a prostitute and an all-important briefcase he was carrying appears to be missing. Reacher being Reacher, he digs deeper and uncovers a deadly conspiracy that travels both up and down the ranks of the US Army.

If Child has a fault when it comes to his plots, it's that there's a certain sameness to them. The Enemy, thanks to its status as a prequel, is able to shake up the typical Reacher formula. It's a combination of military thriller and classic whodunit, less reliant on action than the usual Lee Child adventure.

This is both good and bad. It's good because it's nice to see a Reacher novel with a somewhat slower pace and bad because the plot as a whole suffers a bit from the reduced speed. The book's middle sags a bit under the weight of too many clues and too much information, but Child characteristically turns things around for the ending, delivering one of his trademark knock-out climaxes (think two things: "tanks" and "execution").

Child is still an underrated master of mystery and he puts together a very complicated plot in a pretty logical way, but I still had three-quarters of the ultimate solution figured out a long time before the unraveling. There's nothing here to match The Hard Way's multiple jawdroppers.

The Enemy's appeal mostly lies in the unusual setting and plot and its status as Jack Reacher's "origin story." In an atypical move, Child includes a subplot about Reacher's dying mother, an unabashedly emotional moment for our stalwart man of steel. These scenes are well-served by Child's terse prose, but I think the subplot could have been worked more gracefully into the main story.

Reacher's relationship with fellow MP Summer is also a little awkwardly handled. Reacher almost always has a disposable female companion and it's getting a little overdone. Summer is a likable character whon serves her function well, but we know that she's never going to show up again and that cheapens her romance with Reacher.

At least Child is still on top of his game, writing-wise. There are few authors who can evoke so much with so little. His action scenes are fantastic, but that's not all he can do:

What is the twentieth century's signature sound? You could have a debate about it. Some might say the slow drone of an aero engine. Maybe from a lone fighter crawling across an azure 1940s sky. Or the scream of a fast jet passing low overhead, shaking the ground. Or the whup whup whup of a helicopter. Or the roar of a laden 747 lifting off. Or the crump of bombs falling on a city. All of those would qualify. They're all uniquely twentieth-century noises. They were never heard before. Never, in all of history. Some crazy optimists might lobby for a Beatles song. A yeah, yeah, yeah chorus fading under the screams of their audience. I would have sympathy for that choice. But a song and screaming could never qualify. Music and desire have been around since the dawn of time. They weren't invented after 1900.

No, the twentieth century's signature sound is the squeal and clatter of tank tracks on a paved street. that sound was heard in Warsaw, and Rotterdam, and Stalingrad, and Berlin. Then it was heard again in Budapest and Prague, and Seoul and Saigon. It's a brutal sound. It's the sound of fear. It speaks of a massive overwhelming advantage in power. And it speaks of remote, impersonal indifference. Tank treads squeal and clatter and the very noise they make tell you they can't be stopped. It tells you you're weak and powerless against the machine. Then one track stops and the others keep on going and the tank wheels around and lurches straight toward you, roaring and squealing. That's the real twentieth-century sound. --- (pages 316-317)

Like all of Lee Child's works, The Enemy is a well-written joy to read. He writes thrillers better than just about anyone and his sharp dialogue and minimal description are as stylistically distinctive as Elmore Leonard's stream-of-consciousness prose.

It's a bit of a shame that The Enemy doesn't have a little more impact considering its unique status as the series' prequel volume. The plot is just a bit laborious and the Reacher family subplot seems like a big missed opportunity. As it is, it's an entertaining footnote in the Reacher series, but unlikely to make my Top Five list any time soon.

UP NEXT: Kim Newman's horror/fantasy/alternate history/thriller Anno Dracula.

China Lake by Meg Gardiner

China Lake by Meg Gardiner, 2002

Decent thrillers are easy to come by nowadays. There are plenty of authors who make a living writing respectable, passable thrillers (Dan Brown, David Baldacci, Sue Grafton, Brad Meltzer, Clive Cussler). Finding a really superior thriller author is a rare treat, and Meg Gardiner is without a doubt, a superior author. China Lake, her debut novel, is a wonderful read: funny, scary, smart and absolutely pulse-pounding.

As the book opens, California lawyer Evan Delaney is preparing for her brother's return to their childhood home, the China Lake military base. Evan has been caring for her brother's young son Luke while his father was stationed abroad. But when Evan encounters a fanatical religious cult called the Remnant, she discovers Luke's mother Tabitha has reappeared, now a faithful member of the Remnant, who plan to jump start the Apocalypse with an arsenal of biological weapons. And their insane leader wants Luke, and will stop at nothing to get him.

The plot unfolds beautifully, gaining layers of complexity as it unravels. Gardiner keeps things moving at roller-coaster pace, and effortlessly pulls off twist after twist. I haven't read thriller plotting this good since the last Lee Child novel.

But Gardiner's real secret weapon is her vibrant characters and snappy, witty dialogue. The cast of characters is expertly sketched(with a few exceptions). Evan is a highly appealing protagonist and her paraplegic boyfriend Jesse is equally likable. Gardiner even pulls off the difficult feat of making six-year-old Luke realistic rather than overly cutesy.

The book does have one glaring flaw, especially in the early pages. Gardiner's portrait of the Remnant is not quite believable. She makes them too overtly venomous and too gratuitously stupid. There is nothing seductive or fascinating about them; they're ugly one-dimensional ogres. Their goals and beliefs are totally over the top and Gardiner hits too many of the easy notes too often (they're sexists, racists, homophobes and all-around jerks).

Admittedly, Gardiner fleshes out the cult members a bit as the book progresses, and it's fairly easy to ignore the sloppy character work, especially when all hell is breaking loose elsewhere in the story. But it's too bad that Gardiner couldn't have taken a slightly more subtle approach.

The rest of the novel is pretty much gold. There are some truly amazing moments and reveals. The climax is tremendously exciting, wrapping up the story in an action-packed way, while leaving a small cliffhanger for the sequel (there are currently five Evan Delaney novels in print, with more on the way).

Another thing that Gardiner does well is fleshing out the world of her novel with small quirks and funny subplots (there's a wonderful running story involving bloodthirsty ferrets that pops up every now and then). Despite the seriousness of the novel's main plot, Gardiner has an excellent sense of the offbeat and odd that keeps things from being blandly straightfaced:

Yeltow stared into the pickup. They had most definitely gotten her. Glory drooped on the seat, her eyes wide, blood pouring from gunshot wounds in her face and chest. The blood running down her rib cage mixed with the white foam splattered inside the truck. It dripped onto the gun stuck in the waistband of her cargo pants, a nine-millimeter Beretta. Next to Yeltow, the young uniform looked nauseous. Death smelled sweet and creamy, he mumbled. What was that stuff?

Behind them Randi Brueghel was chattering to McCracken. "I heated it up on the stove," she said, "got it so hot. The cans says 'Warning, contents under pressure,' so I thought, if I can make it burst it'll so totally distract Glory. . . ."

Yeltow saw the exploded canister, made out -Wi on the side. The uniform said it sounded like a bomb. It did. How could he have known it was a can of Reddi-Wip?---(pages 320-321)

The book does get fairly far-fetched by the end, it's true, but less so than most mainstream thrillers. And far-fetched or not, I'm really not going to pick apart the novel's stellar final chapters. Any author who can keep me guessing that much, while also making me care about the characters, is highly skillful.

It's a shame that Gardiner is still largely unknown in the US. An Entertainment Weekly article by Stephen King praising the Evan Delaney series improved her marketability significantly, but she's still far from a household name. It's too bad that a dolt like James Patterson is making millions by churning out formula potboilers, while a thriller as all-around wonderful as China Lake gets ignored.

NEXT UP: The novel that was one of 2009's biggest publishing hits: Kathryn Stockett's The Help.

The Hard Way by Lee Child

The Hard Way by Lee Child, 2006

Lee Child's Jack Reacher series is literary crack. Each novel is a blissfully thrilling blend of mystery and action. Child's lean writing is a combination of John D. MacDonald's and Elmore Leonard's. No other thriller writer gives me as much as pleasure as Child and The Hard Way is another exemplary entry in the Reacher canon.

Jack Reacher (the spiritual grandson of MacDonald's Travis McGee) is an ex-military cop who wanders around America, not staying in one place for more than a few days. His only permanent possessions are his bank card and his folding toothbrush. When he sees cruelty or injustice, he'll deal with it using his lethal skills-- and then move on.

In The Hard Way, Reacher is in New York when he witnesses a dead drop ransom payment. Before long, he's been hired by the head of a deadly mercenary group to find his abducted wife and daughter--and he isn't telling Reacher the whole truth.

Although the Reacher are technically thrillers, the mystery element is usually very strong, and The Hard Way has a fantastic mystery with several truly shocking twists and a conclusion that actually makes sense.

Not to say that the series' signature action isn't in fine form. The climax (which occurs, of all places, in a small English village) is pure kinetic pleasure. Child's clipped style is perfectly suited to action.

There's some nice character interactions, too. Per the formula, Reacher picks up a female companion, an ex-FBI agent saddled with the unfortunate name of Lauren Pauling. Their romance is nicely understated, although nothing highly memorable.

Always a dynamic pacer, Child keeps up the series standard without resorting to a string of over-the-top action scenes. The first two-thirds of the book are really more of a mystery than a true thriller, but the final segment more than makes up for it in badass-ery:

Reacher stared at it for a moment. Then he put it in his pocket. He buried the longer knife to its hilt in Perez's chest. Tucked the shorter knife in his own shoe. Kicked the corkscrew and the broken flashlight into the shadows. Used his thumb to clean Perez's blood and frontal lobe off of the G-36's monocular lens. Picked up the MP5 submachine gun and slung it over his left shoulder.

Then he headed back north and east toward the barns.

Reacher, alone in the dark. Doing it the hard way--- (pages 459-460)

The Jack Reacher novels are just so much fun, unadulterated reading pleasure. Even the occasional unnecessary political aside can't dull the novel's appeal. Writing a novel as truly thrilling as this ain't as easy as it looks and Child is at the top of his game. The Hard Way is about as entertaining a book I've read in the last few months. Until the next Reacher adventure anyway.

NEXT UP: How Right You Are, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse.