British expatriate Lee Child has become perhaps the most respected thriller novelist in the US. His blurbs for colleagues' books send sales soaring. Jack Reacher, his literary creation, is a household name. Tom Cruise has played him in two successful movies.
To be sure, Cruise doesn't physically measure up to the 195cm, 110kg ex-military police major, yet his prowess makes it difficult to notice. His adventures come from hitchhiking around the country and solving crimes in small towns and big cities. Romances are one-night stands.
At the outset of his career, Lee Child frequently got it wrong, assuming American terms didn't differ from British. He's learned better since, but not entirely. His spelling jumps back and forth between British English and American English.
The Midnight Line has Reacher in the US midwest on a self-styled mission. Spotting a West Point woman's cadet ring in a pawnshop, he pays for it and resolves to return it, with only her initials to go by. But how can he find her in a country whose constitution guarantees privacy?
Being who he is, he does. Whereupon the plot shifts gears. Our hero finds himself in the middle of a major DEA, FBI, police sheriff drug crackdown. In the story's best chapter, the author has the sheriff giving several of the characters a history of heroin usage since the 19th century.
Sanderson (owner of the ring) is found, much the worse for wear, with war wounds and a narcotics addiction. The villain of the piece is laundromat owner Scorrio. Reacher beds her and feeds him into one of his machines. Then he's off on the open road again, leaving broken-boned hitmen and imprisoned corrupt army officers behind him.
Given books to review, my fondest hope is that they be interesting. Alas, all too few are. For every Lee Child, John Grisham, James Patterson, Clive Cussler, Jeffry Archer, there are those who are boring and try my patience.
A few authors succeed at first. For the rest, practise, practise, practise.
Fourth Reich spectre
In the waning months of the Third Reich, the Fuhrer offered to change sides so that their combined forces would take on the "real" enemy -- the Russians. The Allies refused out of hand. To cause mayhem, Hitler sought to set them against each other after his "heroic" death.
To this end, he created the Werwolfs. Ostensibly, they were nipped in the bud. Instead, they went underground. A number took refuge in Argentina, where they were permitted to stay -- for a price. Their nefarious plan was to obtain foreign aircraft.
Then a plane with Russian markings would bomb an American city. The US would bomb a Russian city. World War III would follow. While they were at it, neither would be paying attention to the rise of the Fourth German Reich. But to bring this about, a good deal of money would be needed.
Yank author Clive Cussler comes up with all this in The Romanov Ransom. To hear him tell it, the last tsar offered the accumulated treasure of the Romanov Dynasty to the Bolsheviks in 1918 to release the imprisoned royal family. In the event, the treasure is stolen.
It winds up in the hands of the Neo-Nazis. Everybody is now after it. Sabotaged, their plane crashes in the Andes. Enter the author's literary creations, the heroic husband-and-wife team Sam and Remi Fargo, treasure hunters, who locate the wreck. Fighting off the baddies, surviving an avalanche, they hand the jewels, gold, etc to the Argentinian government for a substantial finders' fee. World War III will have to wait a little longer. I imagine Russia will demand it all back.
Sam and Remi are a loving couple with a sense of humour, rather like Mr and Mrs North, exchanging quips when not out shooting enemies. Clive Cussler and his team, like James Patterson and his, are prolific crime thriller writers. To their credit, they pen compelling page-turners -- under 400 pages, for the most part. I can't help wondering how long they can keep up the pace.
