Heather Martin and The Reacher Guy

For the first time in a very long time I am delighted to be able to share an interview here at Grab This Book.

Heather Martin is author of The Reacher Guy: The Authorised Biography of Lee Child. I reviewed the audiobook of The Reacher Guy (here) and found it to be an engrossing account of an author I have read for years; but actually knew very little about. As TRG has recently released in paperback I was delighted when Heather agreed to chat with me about writing Lee’s biography and I finally got to satisfy my curiosity about how she got accurate answers out of a natural storyteller.

Before you met Lee Child and discussed writing about his life I am assuming there was an earlier moment where Jack Reacher first crossed your path. Where did your personal “Lee Child” journey begin?

They say you remember your first time, but I don’t really. I was in Cambridge. It must have been about ten years before I met Lee Child – One Shot, perhaps, which came out in 2005, so before his first New York Times no. 1 in 2008, before he became a household name, but around the time Tom Cruise signed on and things started getting huge. But one thing’s for sure: Reacher turned up just when I needed him. Doesn’t he always? What’s weird is he kept coming back, not like in book world – twenty-four times I think it was. But I was OK with that. And I do remember where it all started – in the bedroom. I pulled a book off the shelf and hopped into bed and well, let’s just say I didn’t sleep much that night. 

I should add that during this period of innocence the name ‘Lee Child’ meant nothing more to me than the guarantee of a good read.

I had somehow imagined you would have been there from the start. Reacher is one of the few series which I caught early. I was there from Killing Floor and utterly hooked. How I wish I had kept my original copies of the early books (and my Star Wars collection too). 

So, if 2005 was when you first encountered Reacher and it was ten years before you met Lee, where did you finally get to meet the man himself? 

I wish you had too! The thing about the Reacher books is they’re equally addictive no matter where you jump in. The damage is done on page one. Another confession: I wasn’t one who waited on the release date, not at least until I met Lee, and then only because I was curious about the man. But he would never have allowed me to write the biography had I been a classic superfan – it’s in his nature to prefer a degree of scepticism. 

We met over dinner at the old Union Square Café on Manhattan’s East 16th St in the summer of 2015. There were seven of us in total. Lee arrived last and folded himself into the last remaining chair, on my left. He was a little cramped. He surveyed the general scene and said: ‘you should have mentioned my name and we would have got the best table in the house’. Nevertheless we soldiered on. He’d been to the dentist that day and was feeling a little delicate; he drank champagne and had profiteroles for dessert. He lamented the loss of the Labour Party’s original clause IV. Afterwards, one of our group, a brilliant young woman who worked as a parliamentary assistant to Harriet Harman, said she wished he would run for leadership of the party. 

A lucky escape for Lee then as if he HAD run for parliament his popularity would have taken an overnight hammering. 

Was that the dinner where the prospect of writing Lee’s biography was first discussed? How do you get from “pass the breadsticks” to “can I write about your life?”

And because I am curious – did you know Lee would be there before the meal? Either way I have always thought it to be very cool.

He was wise to that risk I’m sure. Later he said that if he was made king of the world the first thing he’d do would be abdicate – too much responsibility. 

No mention of biographies, but we got on well and no doubt the seed was sown. We’d already had some correspondence about the Spanish translation of one of his later novels, which I’d critiqued at his request. So yes, I knew he would be there. Our conversation had already begun. After The Reacher Guy was published, Lee told an interviewer for BBC Radio Sheffield it was my commentary on that translation that made him take me seriously as a prospective biographer, because he felt I understood what mattered to him in his writing, what was important. And because I wasn’t afraid to say what I thought. By that point in his career that perhaps wasn’t so common. 

It seems you had established a good relationship with Lee before the biography gained traction. Obviously there came a point where you agreed you would write about his life? I am keen to know where you went from that conversation, where do you start? 

Yes, we were already friends. I first heard him speak publicly in 2016 in Cambridge, at the Literary Festival, then Oxford, at the St Hilda’s Crime Conference, in what he affectionately refers to as his ‘establishment year’, when he was also in demand as an essayist from the New Yorker and the New York Times. That was the year in which he was first picked up by the London Review of Books and the TLS. As you know, he’s an enthralling speaker, as good at spinning a historical tale as a thriller. Presumably it was the academic in me, but I found myself taking notes.

I made the effort to catch up with Lee at festivals and then committed to a couple of short stays in New York so I would have more opportunity to work through my seemingly endless questions. As I’ve said before, the biography arose organically out of a long conversation, and there came a point where we both agreed we thought we could make it work. In between times I covered the obvious bases: I visited the places where he’d lived and worked; I tracked down old friends, teachers and colleagues; I reread all the books, and trawled through the mostly very similar interviews online and on paper, sifting through the evidence and trying gently to separate the man from his persona. Eventually I got access to the archive, which Lee donated to the British Archive for Contemporary Writing at the University of East Anglia in 2018, in advance of his semi-planned retirement. I had most of the first draft done by then, but I think that turned out well for me, because it meant I knew what I was looking for, but also that when I stumbled across something I didn’t know I was looking for it tended to jump out and grab my attention. I loved those weeks, altogether months in the archive – so absorbing, so revealing, both tranquil and exciting. 

Lee is certainly an engaging speaker so I can imagine listening to him at numerous events must have been fascinating. But if he was also promoting the latest book then possibly some repetition would creep in?

That thought leads me towards something I had wondered about as I read TRG. You often reference his habit of adapting or elaborating on facts. It seemed there was Lee’s version of events and everyone else’s version. Did you see anecdotes being told and tweaked at different events and how does that impact upon a biographer who is trying to nail down facts?

And that was a highlight of reading TRG, at times you almost sounded vexed with his recounting of events which others would “amend”.

Such a good question. The repetition itself was interesting, of course. What made him return to those same themes, what made him reach for the same stories? Did it come from within or without? The reasons are many. Some of it was reactive, and over time, as an essentially shy man, he perfected his public persona. But he also refined his thinking around those topics that preoccupy him most deeply: the nature and purpose of fiction, the nature of humanity (which has no purpose), the transaction between reader and writer. I believe he enjoyed that learning process, which is what makes him such a compelling essayist. 

Where you have repetition, variation is also built in. Some of that repetition was willed, some of it unconscious. To an extent it was pragmatic, his performance tailored to suit the time slot allocated, a skill he’d acquired during his years at Granada Television. If he was talking about the distant past – his early childhood, for instance – then by definition he was dealing in stories that had been handed down by parents and grandparents; if he was talking about the present, there was the Reacher brand – and publisher expectation – to consider. Lee was relaxed about it. Nothing he said ever seemed to him contradictory; his brain could reconcile all the angles. He sees all writing as storytelling, and storytelling as among the most ancient of human habits, long preceding the advent of writing, and in tracing the evolution of fiction homes in on the way writers adapt humanity’s best-loved stories to the needs and desires of new audiences. I think this is one of the main reasons he’s a one-draft writer: that’s just how he told the archetypal story that year – he couldn’t go back and change it. 

For the biographer it’s all grist to the mill. Sometimes I would quiz him about the discrepancies between his recollections and those of others. But rather than being daunted by the vagaries of point of view and memory – which I increasingly acknowledged as a condition of the enterprise – I found them liberating. Both Lee and I were aiming for a truthful account, but we both knew it could only ever be an approximation, so then it became more about authenticity, on both sides. I never saw it as my job to pin him down in the manner of a lepidopterist. I don’t like sticking pins in things. I always expected him to elude me, just as Reacher always eludes the reader in the end, and each of us eludes the other. I hope this is something I managed to bring out in the biography, in the later chapters especially, but also in those on the mother figure, and death.

I would like to pull you back to the writing process and how you took on the challenge of capturing a lifetime. It sounds like you had several conversations with Lee and you hit the books and the archives. Did you tackle your research chronologically and try to work from his childhood or perhaps you worked back from when the books were releasing (when I imagine information became more plentiful)?

One thing which did strike me – in the early part of the book he is Jim/James but by the end he is very much Lee. You tell two stories. Is he Jim or Lee to you now?

Many conversations, over years, and a long correspondence too. My approach was less chronological than thematic, and intuitive. Lee would say things; questions would lead to more questions. He told me about his grandparents, and on the Irish side that led back to his great-grandparents. There’d be an anecdote about his father, then gradually we’d fill in the bigger picture. It took longer to get him to talk about his mother. And I only really made significant progress on the school, university and Granada years, when I was able to go back to him with the memories of others. There was a vast amount of information in circulation about his career, a lot of it misleading or erroneous. What I found hardest to work with, ironically, were Lee’s own introductions to special editions of his books: it was difficult to shake off his words. 

When it came to the writing, I tried not to contemplate the enormity of the task, or indeed the temerity. I simply started at the beginning, relying on a particular image, moment, concept or theme to steer me through. Amazingly, it seemed to work, and I grew to trust my own instincts. I liked the idea of each chapter being a self-contained story, which I thought might suit the reader too. 

Lee would always say to me, and to others, ‘a book has to have a beating heart’. So while I approached the subject with due seriousness, it was mostly, in the end, a feeling thing. 

His books were always there and so too his fame. Which I suppose is the beginning of an answer to your second question. I met Lee as Lee, and he’ll always be Lee to me. But it was Jack Reacher I got to know first, so he was there from the start. Jim Grant was the one I knew nothing about. I barely even knew he existed. But what I discovered as I got to know Jim Grant, which I did, to the point where I was comfortable referring to Lee by his given name as necessary and appropriate, was that Reacher had been there from the start for him as well. Not named, not explicitly formulated, but as the archetypal fictional hero, a source of comfort and hope in a miserable childhood, and a fantasy alter ego too. Reacher saved Jim, thanks to Lee Child. 

That’s quite a thought, that before we got to read about Margrave in Killing Floor Reacher had already saved Jim Grant. A ripple effect though, the stone had hit the loch but the ripples would take some time to reach the shore (and Jim/Lee’s future would be secured).

So we know Reacher’s story as Lee has told us that. And we know Jim and Lee’s story thanks to The Reacher Guy. What about Heather Martin? We are long overdue an introduction.

Well, there’s a reason we’re talking about Lee Child and Jack Reacher, and not Heather Martin. So it’s tempting to evade this question. But I have to admit that one of the sweetest thrills of publishing The Reacher Guy last year was when Lee interviewed me rather than the other way round – I’ll be forever grateful to The Big Thrill (the magazine of the International Thriller Writers association) for that audacious idea.

I don’t see myself writing a memoir, just as Lee doesn’t see himself writing an autobiography. Even so, many aspects of Jim Grant’s life story resonate with me, and it’s not least on that basis that I hope the same might be true for others. I too spent my childhood dreaming of escape: not just from the redback spiders, and not because I was unhappy at home (I wasn’t), but because I’d already been given the taste for adventure and travel by my bold, adventurous parents – in their day it wasn’t common to up sticks as they did and emigrate for two years from the sleepy town of Geraldton, several hundred miles north of Perth on the edge of the Indian Ocean, to Aix-en-Provence on the fringes of the Mediterranean. I’ll always admire my early-twenties mother throwing herself fearlessly into the fray of the Provençal food markets with her minimal and Australian-inflected French. And like Lee too, I’ve spent the major part of my life in a prolonged flirtation with another country, or in my case, other countries – France, Spain, England, the United Kingdom in general. So I’ve shared in the outsider experience with all its insights and highs and lows. Of course, he is of the colonisers and I the colonised … I’ve been ambitious too, like him, with enough drive to survive and get on, but in a less directed, more pluralistic way. I lack his singular vision, his ruthless eye on the prize. When I first met the man who would eventually become my guitar teacher in London, he told me I would have to choose between music and ballet. I was thirteen at the time, and I didn’t want to choose. I can hear his words even now, and though in some ways he was clearly right, I still feel in my heart he was wrong.

There’s a reason, too, that The Reacher Guy is so grounded in social detail. It’s because Lee insisted that he was no more than a product of the time and place in which he was born. He was ‘a perfectly normal guy’ whose experiences growing up would be representative of many thousands of others. In fact, he attributes his extraordinary success to the very ordinariness of his origins – he had his writing finger (or two fingers, since he is a two-fingered typist) on the ordinary pulse. Paradoxically, it was his ordinariness that enabled him to escape the ordinary, and achieve the extraordinary. He sums it up nicely in respect to his wealth, acquired only in the latter third of his life (as measured by his current age): ‘I’m a poor man with a lot of money.’

Perhaps there is a fundamental truth in there somewhere: that we all are extraordinary, in our ordinary way. Or should it be the other way round?

The Reacher Guy is published by Little, Brown Group and is now available in paperback, digital format and as an audiobook (narrated wonderfully by Juliet Stevenson. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-reacher-guy/heather-martin/9781472134233 or from any independent bookseller.

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October 6

Better Off Dead – Lee Child and Andrew Child

Reacher never backs down from a problem.

And he’s about to find a big one, on a deserted Arizona road, where a Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. Under the merciless desert sun, nothing is as it seems.

Minutes later Reacher is heading into the nearby border town, a backwater that has seen better days. Next to him is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent, who is trying to find her twin brother. He might have got mixed up with some dangerous people.

And Reacher might just need to pay them a visit.

Their leader has burrowed his influence deep into the town. Just to get in and meet the mysterious Dendoncker, Reacher is going to have to achieve the impossible.

To get answers will be even harder. There are people in this hostile, empty place who would rather die than reveal their secrets.

But then, if Reacher is coming after you, you might be better off dead.

My thanks to the publishers for the review copy I recieved through Netgalley.

The name’s Reacher. Jack Reacher.

I can’t quite picture Reacher introducing himself with the smooth confidence and utter self assurance of James Bond. Yet I read Better Off Dead in the week the new Bond film (No Time to Die) was just hitting cinemas and I was struck by some similarities between the Bond and Reacher franchises. 26 Reacher Books, 25 “official” Bond movies. One lead character who can accomplish pretty much anything he sets out to do, against all odds, surrounded by the corpses of his enemies and more often than not both guys get the girl too.

What the Bond fans have had many decades to come to terms with is that their leading man changes now and then (but he is still James Bond). Also changing is the feel of the franchise when the lead actor changes. Craig is action packed, Moore felt lighter in tone, Brosnan was dark and Connery retains the classic feel of the novels.

Reacher fans are now experiencing a subtle change in their leading man. Reacher is still Reacher but the voice has changed as Andrew Child takes over from brother Lee. For the casual reader the change will not be noticed, it has been a subtle transition and Reacher is Reacher, he gets the job done. But for the committed fans, the ones that read and re-read all the books, they will notice a new hand at the helm and this is their Live and Let Die – the second outing with a different “face” to the one they were so used to. But Live and Let Die was rather good so should we be too worried about background semantics? I guess that depends on whether you think James Bond and Jack Reacher should go on for ever or if the curtain should, one day, be allowed to fall.

But what of Better Off Dead? I enjoyed it a lot more than Reacher 25 (The Sentinel) as Better Off Dead felt distinctly more punchy. Which is to say Reacher seemed to punch lots more people. There is also a very real “big bad” enemy in the form of Dendonker – a man so feared by his own staff that they will take their own life rather than face his wrath.

It’s a very traditional Reacher opening. He is walking alone and spots a car which has hit a tree. He goes to investigate and to establish if the driver is okay; only to find himself looking down the barrel of a gun. This in itself is alarming but when the opening chapter had already hooked readers with a big fight sequence that ended with Reacher getting shot, this retrospective scene isn’t good news for our hero.

As you can see from the blurb, Reacher is on a rescue mission. A missing twin. This isn’t the first time Reacher finds himself in a small, seemingly quiet, town tasked with finding a missing man. The man he needs to find is probably dead but his sister implores Reacher to help track him down. The fact his disappearance may link to a possible terror threat is more than enough reason for Reacher to stick around and help.

Looking for leads in a quiet town where most people are unaware of the monster in their midst gives Reacher good cause to dig around. His attention isn’t welcomed and Dendonker sends his staff to handle the situation. This is always fun for a Child reader.

Reacher’s digging uncovers more questions than answers. Dendonker made money from selling airplane meals, his products go onto planes which fly around the world so when the idea and potential threat of terror attacks raises its head Reacher’s rescue mission takes on a whole new angle.

Reacher against the bad guys trying to stop their plans – it’s what we come back for time and time again.

If we consider Better Off Dead on a numbers basis (I hope Reacher would approve) I am sure tens of thousands of casual readers will be more than satisfied with this action thriller.

The smaller proportion of fanatic readers may miss the lack of Reacher analysing numbers, question the fact he makes frequent of use of mobile phones and there will be lots of small differences individual readers will feel changes “their” Reacher. But at the end of the day the big numbers will carry it. It happens with Bond, it happens with Spider-Man and it happens with our television soaps and drama shows. Writers change, the characters go on, some episodes land and pack a punch, some tick the box and move on. A new generation of fans will not flinch at two names on the cover of Better Off Dead and will soak up the excitement.

Reacher endures, Better Off Dead delivers the drama and excitement and we will be back for the next one because we are Jack Reacher fans.

Better off Dead will be published by Transworld on 26 October 2021 in Hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/better-off-dead/lee-child/andrew-child/2928377053321

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July 9

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Neil Lancaster

This week I am delighted to introduce Neil Lancaster who has kindly agreed to take on my Decades challenge. In what could almost be considered a bit of careful planning, Neil is the first of two back-to-back guests who are making their decades selections in publication week of their new novel. This gives you six days to get your pre-order placed for Neil’s terrific thriller Dead Man’s Grave and a full week to work out who next week’s guest could possibly be!

If you haven’t come across my Decades challenge yet then let me explain what I asked Neil to help with. I am trying to build a new library of the very best books but started with nothing on the shelves. Each week since January I have been joined by a guest (authors, bloggers, journalists and publishers) and I ask them to help me fill the Library shelves by nominating their favourite reads. But each guest must follow two rules:

1 – Select ANY five books
2 – My guests may only choose one book per decade over five consecutive decades.

I shall leave you in Neil’s capable hands…

Neil Lancaster is the No.1 Audible bestselling author of the Tom Novak series. He has served in the RAF as a Military Policeman, in the UK, Germany, Cyprus and the Falkland Islands. He has worked for the Metropolitan Police as a Detective, investigating serious crimes in the capital and beyond. As a covert policing specialist, he has used a variety of tactics to obtain evidence against murderers, human traffickers, drug dealers and fraudsters.

He now lives in the Scottish Highlands, writes crime and thriller novels and works as a broadcaster and commentator on true crime documentaries. He is a key expert on two Sky Crime TV series, Meet, Marry, Murder and Made for Murder.

Twitter: www.twitter.com/@neillancaster66
Facebook: www.facebook.com/@NeilLancasterCrime
Website: www.neillancastercrime.co.uk

You can visit Neil’s Amazon page here:

Neil’s new novel Dead Man’s Grave has been included on the 2021 Bloody Scotland MacIlvanney Prize Longlist. It releases in digital format on Thursday 16th July and my review (with a pre-order link) is here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5620

DECADES

1950’s My family and Other Animals- Gerald Durrell- 1956

This book means so much to me that I find it hard to explain myself, which for a writer is a bit daft. I first came across this book aged about ten years old when my older sister was doing English Lit for O’ Level. As anyone of a certain age will tell you, this book was a feature on the syllabus for many years, and as a result it is widely loved and loathed in equal measures. I fall very much into the first category. It’s a magical, sunlit tale of the Durrell family’s five-year sojourn to Corfu in the 1930’s during that period between the world wars. My Mum, a real bookworm basically ordered me to read it. Up until this point, my reading had been limited to The Beano, The Dandy and occasionally Sparky, but as soon as I began reading, I was completely transfixed by the tale of the eccentric Durrell family and their life in Corfu. All at once the book was warm, sunlit, funny, intriguing and sometimes heart-rending. I learned from the book just what words on a page could conjure in my young mind. I was instantly transported to pre-war Corfu with the beautifully written descriptions of the landscape, flora and faunae. A magical book that will live with me forever.

1960’s- The Spoilers-Desmond Bagley- 1969

Desmond Bagley. Well, what can I say about him?

It’s pretty clear to me that without this author, I’d never had opened a laptop with the idea of writing a novel. Perhaps not as well known as Alistair Maclean or Len Deighton, Bagley was still a multi-million seller of fast paced thrillers, typical of that era.

This one, The Spoilers is a real knockabout rollercoaster of a thriller. A millionaire businessman’s daughter dies from a heroin overdose. He’s not satisfied, so puts together a team of individuals to take the fight to the heroin importers. A proper boys own tale of daring, risk, adventure and loss. The baddies are REALLY bad, the heroes as disparate as could be imagined. It just grabs you by the lapels and drags you in. Bagley was the master story teller of the thriller that featured an ordinary guy thrust into an extra-ordinary situation. Just a phenomenal book.

1970’s Running blind – Desmond Bagley-1970

My whole #Decades list was constructed around this book, that I maintain is Baglley’s best. I just HAD to have Running Blind in. I have read it more than any other book.

This presented me with an enormous problem, as I could have had a whole list of books just from the 1970’s, but as there are rules, even if there’s only two of them, I had to build my list around Running Blind. Just think of the other 1970’s books I could have included. The Moon’s a Balloon, Legionnaire, most of the Alistair MacLean’s, Deighton, Francis and loads of other Bagley’s, but rules is rules, so here we is.

I first read this book after watching the 1979 dramatisation of the book, which starred Stuart Wilson and George Sewell. I was only 13 at the time, but it had a profound effect on me. The story of a lapsed British intelligence agent forced into one last mission by a corrupt spy boss. He travels to Iceland to complete a simple task, but all is clearly not as it seems and he finds himself at the heart of a conspiracy involving KGB, CIA, double agents, and triple agents. It was just tremendous (look it up on YouTube. My Mum found the book in a charity shop and I devoured it. From that moment on, I was hooked on thrillers, and simply never looked back Bagley was a master craftsman at twists, revelation and pace and no one has influenced my journey as a writer more.

To my mind the opener of Running Blind has never been bettered, so I hope you’ll indulge me.

“To be encumbered with a corpse is to be in a difficult position. True, any doctor, even one just out of medical school, would have been able to diagnose the cause of death. The man had died of heart failure or what the doctors call cardiac arrest. The cause of his heart having stopped pumping blood was that someone had slid a sharp sliver of steel between his ribs just far enough to penetrate the great muscle of the heart and to cause a serious and irreversible leakage of blood so that it stopped beating. Cardiac arrest, as I said.

I wasn’t too anxious to find a doctor because the knife was mine and the hilt had been in my hand when he died. I stood on the open road with the body at my feet and I was scared, so scared that the nausea rose in my throat to choke me. This particular body had been a stranger — I had never seen him before in my life.”

BEAT THAT ! ! !

1980’s Policeman’s Lot- Harry Cole -1981

Harry Cole was a Bermondsey boy born before the war. After brief service in the army, and a time as a stone mason, he joined the Metropolitan Police in the 1950s. After training he was posted to Carter Street Police Station in Bermondsey, South London where he remained for thirty years.

His account of policing London in those decades has never been bettered in my opinion. All at once uproariously funny, touching, and often sad. He knitted together his decades of experiences into a beautifully written collection of disparate stories. I was dead set on joining the Met, and I read this book until it fell to pieces. It should still be required reading for anyone seeking to become a cop. There is more wisdom in those yellowed pages than in any official “how to” manual.

1990’s Killing Floor-Lee Child-1997

What can I say? I simply have loved everything that Lee Child has written. The hook of Reacher is just irresistible. The lone gunman coming into town is always an attractive prospect because of what it represents. Freedom. Reacher has nothing beyond his folding toothbrush, and a desire to travel America, where he just runs into situations that are there for him to solve. He’s what we all would secretly like to be (or so we tell ourselves) as in, free. No ties, no money worries, no washing clothes, no job, just the open road and an innate sense of discovery.

Child is a brilliant storyteller. His prose is lean and spare with no words wasted and Killing Floor is as good, if not better than any of his books. The tale of corrupt cops, murder money and deception. I could prattle on forever here, but we’ve all read it, right?

As long as you can continue to suspend belief that the same shit keeps happening to the same guy, the Reacher series is there forever, and for everyone.

Huge thanks to Neil for taking time to select five new books for my Library. I think this is the first time someone has managed to get two books by one author into their selections (still waiting for someone to do a clean sweep of Stephen King). I am also hugely excited to see Killing Floor appear – if I were to ever make my selections then this could well have been a contender for my own list.

If you want to visit my Library, see all the previous selections and meet the guests who selected each of the books then you can click this handy link: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5113

DECADES WILL RETURN

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March 23

The Reacher Guy (Audiobook) – Heather Martin

Jack Reacher is only the second of Jim Grant’s great fictional characters: the first is Lee Child himself. Heather Martin’s biography tells the story of all three.

Lee Child is the enigmatic powerhouse behind the bestselling Jack Reacher novels. With millions of devoted fans across the globe, and over a hundred million copies of his books sold in more than forty languages, he is that rarity, a writer who is lauded by critics and revered by readers. And yet curiously little has been written about the man himself.

The Reacher Guy is a compelling and authoritative portrait of the artist as a young man, refracted through the life of his fictional avatar, Jack Reacher. Through parallels drawn between Child and his literary creation, it tells the story of how a boy from Birmingham with a ferocious appetite for reading grew up to become a high-flying TV executive, before coming full circle and establishing himself as the strongest brand in publishing.

Heather Martin explores Child’s lifelong fascination with America, and shows how the Reacher novels fed and fuelled this obsession, shedding light on the opaque process of publishing a novel along the way. Drawing on her conversations and correspondence with Child over a number of years, as well as interviews with his friends, teachers and colleagues, she forensically pieces together his life, traversing back through the generations to Northern Ireland and County Durham, and following the trajectory of his extraordinary career via New York and Hollywood until the climactic moment when, in 2020, having written a continuous series of twenty-four books, he finally breaks free of his fictional creation.

Having read the book before Christmas I then bought the audiobook through my Audible membership – this is an audiobook review with an explanation as to why I doubled up!

I don’t really read non-fiction. There are a number of reasons behind this but key ones are that I am a speed/skim reader and I really struggle to focus on non-fiction books for any length of time (see also short story anthologies). Secondly, I am TERRIBLE at remembering names so when books dwell on people, as biographies tend to do, I quickly get confused about the players in the chapter and lose interest. Third, I seldom find a person or subject I want to read about in depth. If those issues were not enough to contend with, I have a fiction TBR which is screaming to be read.

Some time ago, when I was a good deal younger than I am today, I picked up a new book called Killing Floor. As many people have since discovered it was a brilliant read and the twenty-three subsequent Lee Child novels were pretty darned fine too. Lee Child has been a regular go-to reading choice in our house and only a new Terry Pratchett Discworld book could rival the anticipation of the next Jack Reacher book.

Over twenty years of Reacher Fandom was a pretty good reason to read The Reacher Guy. I wanted to know more about the man who came up with all those exciting stories, the man who calculates the physics in a fight scene and the man who has a cover quote on quite a few of the books featured in this blog – how can he read so prolifically and still have time to write? The Reacher Guy answered my questions and gave a remarkably frank insight to the character who is Lee Child and the man he was before the books began.

Heather Martin has been extremely thorough when it comes to getting to the core of James Grant. The early chapters of the book focus on his childhood years and the family around him. His grandfathers, his parents who let him down at a young age and the friction which seems to have never abated throughout his life, school friends, old teachers – all are explored and there are examples of how their relationship with the young Mr Grant formed the man he would become and influenced the characters he would create.

The early years and Grant’s background are expanded by the author to take in much of the social history of the time and if Jim Grant lived in Coventry then Heather Martin went to Coventry to see where he lived. It seems to bemuse Lee Child that Dr Martin would visit Jim Grant’s house but that gives you some idea of how this book addresses the relationship between the biographer, the author, his alter-ego and his internationally recongised lead character.

I found the tangents taken in the narrative to be fascinating. One page you are reading about a family photograph taken by a brick wall then the next page could be about men returning from the war and how they were patched up or left to fend for themselves. The book takes many unpredicable turns and the only comparison I could draw (from my limited exposure to non-ficti0n) was the narration style of Bill Bryson who can comfortably steer the reader from a paragraph about an attic to five pages on churchyard burial practices in the 18th century. It is engaging and informative and when you have the story being narrated by the wonderful Juliet Stevenson you don’t really want these narrative deviations to end.

As Jim Grant grows older his experiences change and readers are treated to stories of The Beatles and gigs which the music loving Grant was able to attend. Then comes the meeting with his future-wife and the need to settle and get a job to support a family. He excelled in his professional career too and hearing how he secured a job he loved and then mastered is oddly abosorbing. Who enjoys hearing about someone else’s day job?

What struck me throughout The Reacher Guy was the constant reminder that Lee Child makes up stories for a living. He attends many events and has to answer many questions about his background. The book does make it clear that many tales he tells are likely to have been somewhat embellished down the years. Heather Martin meets old acquintances of Grant/Child and these old friends are quite happy to pop the fictional bubble which has been blown around some of these recollections and clarify some more practical detail. Nevertheless there is no doubting that Jim Grant had a fascinating life before he first took readers to Margrave, Georgia.

The final third of the book is where we leave Jim Grant and join Lee Child. The mentions of Jim are much less frequent as once the writing begins Jim Grant is moved to the background and only Lee Child gets to meet publishers, editors and producers. These are the pages the Reacher fans will be lapping up. Hearing how the books were formed, how characters got named, where hard work and grafting got a substantial manuscript down to a page-turning sensation.

When I read The Reacher Guy I skimmed too much of the detail. I picked up the audiobook as you can’t skim details in audio – you need to let every word be heard. What a great decision that turned out to be. Juliet Stevenson has a wonderful voice and she perfectly captures the mood of each chapter. There are times where Jim Grant does not always come out of a situation looking in the best of lights – Stevenson’s narrative sounds sharp and disapproving almost as though she is not happy with what she is having to relay to us. Yet in times of success and celebration the light congratulatory tones are uplifting.

It’s a weighty book and a lenghty listen but both can be considered time well spent. The paperback will be out later in the year but a savvy shopper can currently pick up the hardback at less than half of the cover price. For a guy that doesn’t read non-fiction, I read the Hell out of this book. Will be recommending this for some time to come.

The Reacher Guy is published by Constable and is available in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B086L3VD1T/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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August 6

Holiday Reading – Part 2

Time to do some catching up. I have spent a large part of July reading and a tiny part of July writing reviews so it’s time to redress the balance. I finished over a dozen books during my summer break and that is too many to fit into a single catch-up post so I shall break these down into double headers.

Black and Blue – David Rosenfelt

Doug Brock hasn’t had it easy since his getting shot in the line of duty as a New Jersey state police officer. Between the amnesia and having to solve two murder cases, it hasn’t been the most restful recovery. Now, the cold case department is checking evidence from a murder case Doug was investigating before the accident, but the DNA points to a man Doug eliminated as a suspect and he remembers none of it. Doug begins to reinvestigate what turns out to be a series of unsolved killings and must retrace his steps to discover why he would have let the suspect go free. What he uncovers may be more dangerous than any case he’s faced yet.

My thanks to Minotaur Books for my review copy

David Rosenfelt has written a lot of books but this is my introduction to his work. David has released 19 books in the Andy Carpenter series, all with a distinctly canine theme, I shall be turning my attention to those very soon. However, it should be noted that Black and Blue does not feature Andy Carpenter (and I don’t recall many dogs) this one is a Doug Brock thriller – I inhaled it in just two sittings.

Brock is a cop in New Jersey. He was shot in the line of duty and lost a lot of his memories – not them all but enough that he cannot remember much of his life over the last few years prior to the shooting. This has created issues with his fiancee and means some cases he worked are a total mystery to him.

In Black and Blue one of Brock’s older cases may have become pertinent to an active investigation and he will need to revisit his original case notes to try and identify who may be responsible for a shooting. Did Brock let a killer walk free?

As Brock and his colleagues review likely suspects the body count increases. The most elusive of killers, a sniper, seems to be working through a list of intended victims whilst taunting the police about their lack of progress in stopping his “work”.

The dynamic between Brock and his colleagues was engaging and gave some lighter moments away from the murder scenes. Pacy, action packed and with a good number of twists to keep me reading. Perfect holiday reading.

Black and Blue is published by Minotaur Books and can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Blue-Doug-Brock-Thriller/dp/1250133149/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=david+rosenfelt&qid=1565117369&s=gateway&sr=8-8

Exit Wounds – edited by Paul B Kane and Marie O’Regan

A brand-new anthology of crime stories written by masters of the genre, including Jeffery Deaver, Val McDermid and Lee Child.

A brand-new anthology of crime stories written by masters of the genre. Featuring both original in-universe stories and rarely-seen reprints, this collection of masterful short stories brings together some of the genre’s greatest living authors.

This was perfect reading for a summer vacation. I was able to pick up and set down the book for short reading bursts between activities and day trips. While stop/start bursts is frustrating when working my way through a novel, these bite sized, unsettling tales were ideal.

I don’t read many short story anthologies so I am not sure what the correct etiquette may be for a review. As such I don’t plan to discuss each story individually (there are nineteen) but as I go along I will highlight a few which stood out.

First I need to highlight the quality of the collection. Val McDermid shares a Tony Hill and Carol Jordan story, James Oswald treats us to a Tony McLean chiller (one of my favourites in the collection), Lee Child, Dean Koontz and Dennis Lehane are joined by Steph Broadribb, Sarah Hilary and AK Benedict and I still haven’t mentioned more than half of the authors!

Two of the stories which stuck with me long after I put the book down were Dead Weight by Fiona Cummins and Disciplined by Martyn Waites. Some voices across the book just strike a chord with me or I found the twist was unexpected (and possibly nasty). It has been almost 3 weeks since I finished the last story in the collection but these two stories were the ones I thought of first when I sat down to prepare my review.

This is a cracking collection from Titan Books. The stories are dark and disturbing and the quality of tales assembled in a single volume is terrific.

Exit Wounds is available to order here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Exit-Wounds-K-Benedict/dp/1785659189/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=exit+wounds&qid=1565123235&s=digital-skills&sr=8-1

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November 6

Make Me / Wolves in the Dark (Audiobook)

Make Me

Lee Child is now one of the few authors that I read and re-read and then read all over again. I think I have read Killing Floor well over a dozen times down the years. Somehow I missed reading Make Me when it first released so my Audible credits were flexed to give me some listening pleasure. And what pleasure it was.

The mystery at the heart of Make Me runs right to the final scenes and even if you had given me 100 guesses I would never have puzzled this one out – totally gripping and more than a little disturbing. But definitely one of the better novels in the series – I really enjoyed this one.

Child is happy to let Reacher age and in Make Me there were signs that his is slowing down and becoming a bit more vulnerable…extra drama!

The audiobook was very well presented. Narration by Jeff Harding who nailed Reacher but some of the other character voices were a bit too similar over the course of the whole book. A minor niggle and it took nothing away from my overall enjoyment.

Wolves in the Dark

Varg Veum returns in this dark, dark tale from Gunnar Staalesen. Veum is in a dangerous position – charged with an horrific offence and the evidence against him is damning. The biggest problem with Varg will face is…himself. He had gone through a period of self oblivion, drinking heavily and hardly functioning from day to day.

Now facing the very real prospect of a lengthy prison sentence Veum must do whatever it takes to shake off his clouded memories and discover who he may have upset that may have tried to plant evidence against him. But what it Veum DID do the crimes which he was accused of?

His personal trauma, self doubt and the trust he needs others to have in him are brilliantly conveyed by Gunnar Staalesen – a magnificent storyteller and in top, top form here. Wolves in the Dark is hard to “enjoy” as the topics covered are distressing at times – but this is a powerful book and I loved listening to it.

Narrated by Colin Mace, the gruff tones of Varg Veum were pitched perfectly and captured how I had imagined he would sound.

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November 19

Night School – Lee Child

In the morning, they gave Reacher a medal. And in the afternoon, they sent him back to school.

It’s just a voice plucked from the air: ‘The American wants a hundred million dollars’.

For what? Who from? It’s 1996, and the Soviets are long gone. But now there’s a new enemy. In an apartment in Hamburg, a group of smartly-dressed young Saudis are planning something big.

Jack Reacher is fresh off a secret mission and a big win. The Army pats him on the back and gives him a medal. And then they send him back to school. It’s a school with only three students: Reacher, an FBI agent, and a CIA analyst. Their assignment? To find that American. And what he’s selling. And to whom. There is serious shit going on, signs of a world gone mad.

Night School takes Reacher back to his army days, but this time he’s not in uniform. With trusted sergeant Frances Neagley at his side, he must carry the fate of the world on his shoulders, in a wired, fiendishly clever new adventure that will make the cold sweat trickle down your spine.

My thanks to Patsy Irwin of Transworld for my review copy.
When we first met Jack Reacher in Killing Floor (20 books ago) he had served his country, left the army and was starting his nomadic lifestyle. As it became clear that Reacher was a highly decorated officer, readers realised that they had missed many of his early adventures and had not had the chance to learn what made Reacher into the man he was. The Enemy was the first book to jump back to Reacher’s army days and now Night School is giving another welcome return to “retro Reacher”

Plucked from his normal duties he is being sent to school to learn how the army can co-operate better with other agencies. Reacher is not happy, he has just been awarded a medal for successfully completing a rather unpleasant piece of “housekeeping” for his employers and now it seems he is being side-lined. But all may not be quite as it seems and it is not long before Reacher and (very pleasingly) Neagley are back doing what we love best – tracking down the bad guys.

Night School has a bit of a different feel than most of the previous books in the series. Reacher is very much working as part of a team this time around (not his tight group of Special Investigators) but a bigger entity which includes the army, the FBI and the CIA. There are more factions to juggle and the lines of enquiry are much bigger than Reacher taking down the few bad seeds in small town America.

I enjoyed the change of pace and the bigger scale of the story. The threat that the investigators are chasing down is a big deal, an international crisis and large parts of the book is set in Germany – putting Reacher right into the heart of the action.

Returning readers will enjoy some unexpected cameo appearances and there are lots of classic “Reacher” moments – the analysis of how a fight may unfold, Neagley being the best at everything and Reacher doggedly playing reasoned hunches. Night School is another great read from Lee Child and already I am looking forward to the next.

Night School is published by Transworld and is available in Hardback and digital formats. You can order a copy through this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-School-Jack-Reacher-21/dp/0593073908/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479573922&sr=1-1&keywords=night+school+lee+child

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August 27

It’s Jack Reacher Time!

This week will see the publication of the new Jack Reacher novel from Lee Child. It is safe to say that I am excited by this – Lee Child is now the only author I will buy on week of release (sorry Mr Pratchett, 10 months later and Raising Steam is still only half read).

I count myself fortunate that I found the first Lee Child novel (Killing Floor) around a month after it was first published. Hooked since day one I have enjoyed seeing the author’s popularity soar and the Reacher novels become bestsellers around the world. Lee Child writes books that I want to read.

His latest novel is entitled Personal and is the 19^th Jack Reacher story. A review for that book will follow (just as soon as I can get my paws on it). In the meantime I thought I would put together a list of my five favourite Reacher stories:

In no particular order I recommend:

Killing Floor

This is where it all began! Book One. Meet Jack Reacher, former military cop – our hero.

Jack Reacher jumps off a bus and walks fourteen miles down a country road into Margrave, Georgia. An arbitrary decision he’s about to regret.

Reacher is the only stranger in town on the day they have had their first homicide in thirty years. The cops arrest Reacher and the police chief turns eyewitness to place him at the scene. As nasty secrets leak out, and the body count mounts, one thing is for sure.

They picked the wrong guy to take the fall.

This is an explosive start to the series, a small sleepy town is hiding dark secrets. Reacher is there by chance but finds himself caught up in events . To clear his name he must track down a murderer but it is kill or be killed and Reacher is not a man to back down from a challenge.

Without Fail

The Secret Service are looking for Reacher as they have a job for him – to assassinate the Vice President.

Book 6 in the series. If you are looking to avoid spoilers then this one should really be read after Killing Floor. I re-read the Reacher novels on a regular basis and Without Fail is one of the books I return to more than most. A clever plot which is both tragic and funny, it gives a great display of Reacher’s investigative prowess too. A highlight was the first introduction to Frances Neagley – she crops up again in

Bad Luck And Trouble

When Reacher was in the army he headed up a unit of Special Investigators within the Military Police. This close knit team were his hand-picked elite and they watched each other’s backs. Years later the Special Investigators have all lost touch and gone their separate ways but someone has killed one of the team and now Neagley wants Reacher to reassemble the Special Investigators.

I cannot speak highly enough of Bad Luck and Trouble. This was Book 11 in the series and we get to see Reacher working as part of a team rather than acting on his own. Lee Child has set some of his novels during Reacher’s time in the army (The Affair and The Enemy) I would love another story featuring the Special Investigators.

61 Hours

This book (number 14) kicked off a story arc which did not end until Never Go Back (book 18). While each story could be read as a stand-alone novel it does make more sense to read them in order.

I found 61 hours particularly atmospheric. The story plays out in a very snow filled town in South Dakota; Child nails his depiction of a desolate, cold and isolated town shut off from the outside world by snow storms. The local police are guarding a key witness who is going to help them prosecute a drug dealer but resources are stretched can they trust Reacher (a stranger) to guard their witness? To Reacher everyone is a stranger – can he protect the witness?

The Enemy

Finally I have selected one of the books set out of the normal chronology.

The Enemy is a story from the days that Reacher was still in the army. This was the 7^th book released but our first look at how behaved when he was constrained by the rules and regulations of army life. Politics and distrust of the Military Police are rife and Reacher has to find a murderer on an army base when all the evidence suggests that Reacher himself is the killer.

The Jack Reacher novels can (generally) be read out of sequence as most are great stand-alone stories. It does help to read 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, A Wanted Man and Never Go Back in that order. Also Killing Floor has a major plot thread which is best read before Without Fail.

When Lee Child was touring to promote One Shot I was able to hear him discuss his work and read from his new novel (he has a great reading voice). During the Q&A’s Child confirmed that Reacher does grow older and the books do see him aging. This was around 10 years ago and later books do address Reacher getting older. However, one statement worried and saddened me…

When discussing the future of the character Child confirmed that Reacher would not go on forever. He suggested that one day there may be a book in which Jack Reacher would be killed off – provisional title on that evening in Glasgow was Die Lonely.

Ten years down the line and Reacher is still going strong – I hope it does so for many years to come.

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