Jack Reacher fans – and there are millions worldwide – will have been eagerly awaiting Better Off Dead, the 27th in the Reacher series. I know I was, and when the novel arrived from the publishers, I jumped straight into it.
The first chapter was a true Reacher introduction, and a novel way to get into the story. It was from chapter two that I started having doubts about the writing, which is done in the first person. While this is not the only Reacher book done in this style, I must admit to finding this one a bit off-putting. Writing in the first person can be rather limiting for a novelist. He/she can only expound on events that happen to the central character, or things that he sees, hears, smells etc. There can be no description of anything that goes on which is outside the protagonist’s immediate environment – what the bad guys are thinking/doing at a particular time, for example.
Be that as it may, and perhaps it’s a personal preference, the story zings along with Reacher beating up a multitude of bad guys, most of whom would rather die in combat that betray their boss, the mysterious Dendoncker, who is up to some nefarious business, the consequences of which are not immediately apparent.
The second problem was a writing style, which pops up unexpectedly and intermittently through the narrative, as below:
”Nothing happened for ten seconds. Twenty. Then I heard three beeps. From the device. High-pitched. Electronic. The pump began to hum. It built up to a steady drone. Smoke appeared. Just a wisp at first. White. From the holes in the central shell. It grew into a steady stream. It was thick. Dense. Like steam from a kettle.”
Apart from steam from a kettle being described as thick and dense, which is debatable, the above paragraph contains 16 sentences, if one can describe a single word as a sentence. No million-selling author writes like this, so I wondered what this paragraph was doing in the new Jack Reacher novel. And it’s not the only instance – the short sentences keep on appearing (rather suddenly) every now and then throughout the book. Maybe it was done for effect, but the only effect it had on me was to irritate me, as the style became an affectation.
I can’t help feeling that Lee Child has unfortunately gone the way of several top-notch authors these days – writing novels in conjunction with other authors – in this case, his brother Andrew, who is apparently an author as well. There is a Q&A with Andrew Child at the end of Better Off Dead and there are many instances of “I” instead of “Lee and I”. This might explain a few things.
Please note that the above is only my personal opinion, but I found the book somewhat disappointing. One can only hope that Lee Child reverts to his former brilliance as one of the world’s top selling authors in the future, bringing us Jack Reacher as he always was.
POSTSCRIPT: This was only discovered after the above review was written. Apparently Lee Child has retired and handed over the writing of the Jack Reacher series to his brother Andrew, which explains a lot. – Barry Meehan
Better Off Dead – The New Jack Reacher is published by PenguinRandomHouse. ISBN 978-1-7876-3374-2
Posts
