Reacher Series - books 3, 4, 5.

Having reviewed the first book - Killing Floor - and the second book - Die Trying - I thought I should continue with the next three books in the Reacher series by Lee Child. 

Book 3: Tripwire

The book begins with Jack Reacher in Florida Keys but events lead him north to the New York area, where he has an unexpected reunion at the funeral of a friend with whom he worked in book 2. Also, Reacher falls in love.

As usual, Reacher becomes embroiled in dealing with criminals and their gratuitously violent tortures. Other than that, the book is a page turner and the story telling is more fluent plus there's a nice plot twist reveal towards the end of the book. 

Book 4: The Visitor

The murders in this book are less graphically violent, more chilling, indicating a different kind of killer rather than organised crime. Reacher is staying with his girlfriend from the previous book when approached by the FBI to assist with identifying and catching a serial killer which, eventually, he does.

Not sure if I liked the story but, once again, it was compelling reading.

Book 5: Echo Burning

I think that this is the best of the books, so far, in that it deals with the story and leaves out the unnecessary torture and love-making details that I previously found wearing. Reacher's on the road again and this adventure finds him in Texas. 

There are several murders but without the graphic violence from earlier books. The way the author brings together the many elements of the story is excellent. Of the likely suspects, I'd narrowed it down to two until near the end when the person behind these will become obvious.

Conclusion: I always felt that Texas was a place I would never want to live (although I have visited once and I know a couple of 'normal' people who live there). This book brings home how vast the state is and confirms that I would not be comfortable living there.

About the Author.

Lee Child is a Brit, born James Dover Grant in the midlands, almost 70 years ago. He worked in TV from 1977 until 1995 when he was made redundant and began writing. Both he and his younger brother, Andrew, also an author, live in the U.S.A. with their American wives.

I found this interesting (Wikipedia): "In January 2020, Child announced that he would be retiring from writing the Jack Reacher series and handing it to his brother Andrew Grant, who would write further books of the series under the surname Child. He intended to write the next few books together with Grant before passing the series entirely over to him." Andrew Grant writes under the name Andrew Child.

Note:

p.s. Please bear in mind that these are my opinions of how good I feel the books are and are not meant to be a synopsis of the stories. As such, feel free to agree/disagree in the comments.

Video Gaming isn't necessarily a waste of time

Watching University Challenge a while back, Jeremy Paxman was berating students who spent their time playing video games. That kind of behaviour can alienate people and exhibits narrow-mindedness. I wonder whether he thought that Horrible Histories was a waste of time because it was 'silly'.

I've noticed, since then, that there have been a few questions on University Challenge that have referred to video games. Quite rightly, too. There is a skill to programming games and an incredible amount of research goes into preparing for some storylines. For instance, were you aware that, following the fire that virtually destroyed the Notre Dame, the makers of Assassins Creed offered their services to help with the rebuild? 

My son left school with an interest (but not a useful qualification) in History, despite his teacher's attempts to put him off, and he has continued to build on that interest. Games like Assassins Creed helped to fuel this. They have fairly accurately covered many well-known as well as little-known facts over several decades and various locations, such as the Crusades, the French Revolution, Vikings and the Italian Renaissance to name a few. In fact, take a look at this feature from The Gamer.

I'm not a gamer but the related stories that are included with the gameplay can be really interesting. I'm also fascinated by some of the games' fans - see a previous post about Assassins Creed Parkour. 

My biggest difficulty with Assassins Creed is where to place the apostrophe. Ubisoft uses Assassin's Creed (single assassin) but I'm aware that this is a brotherhood so, if there is more than one assassin, shouldn't it be Assassins' Creed?

My Time Again ... And Again?

I have now read these two books by author Ian Cummins.

The first book was My Time Again, a story of a 69-year-old man who went to sleep in his own bed in his own bedroom in his own home, with the expectation of waking up the following morning to celebrate his 70th birthday. But... he wakes up in a different room. 

As he becomes more awake, he feels that the room is familiar. He also feels physically better than he did the previous day. In a few minutes, he discovers that this is, in fact, his 18th birthday and he is back in his room where he lived when he started university - in October 1970.

By the time he reaches the eve of his 70th birthday (again), he has been involved in numerous events, including some with secret services. But what happens then? Will he return, move to another 'parallel' life, die or something else? Read My Time Again to find out.

Spoiler? Just mentioning the sequel, And Again? implies that he didn't die, because he has another adventure - where? Or, a more accurate question might be when? And, of course, why?

Another time travelling adventure for the septuagenarian! Both books are available from Amazon (and free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription).

Manifest - TV series - Review

Oddly, the first, second and fourth series is on Netflix but the third series was on Sky/Now TV (in the UK). 

Should you watch Manifest? Read below and decide.

It started as a mystery - a plane and its passengers disappeared, to arrive five years later. Unlike the people who had been mourning them, assuming them to be dead, the passengers hadn't aged. It was as if they had been in suspended animation for that time. Most noticeable were the twins - a girl aged about 15 (who was not on the flight) and her twin brother (who was on the flight) had remained about ten years old.

The passengers were unaware of anything being amiss until they landed. For them, it was a normal flight, a few hours in the air.

As the story progressed, it became more surreal. "God" was setting tasks for the passengers, who received their 'callings' in their heads, sometimes shared with others, as vague puzzles to be solved. Driving the quest to resolve the 'callings' was Ben (father of the aforementioned twins) and his sister, Mick (Michaela).

There were three other instances of people cheating death, temporarily, which led to the conslusion that the world would end in a finite time.

Skipping ahead to the fourth series, we are now familiar with all the characters. Key to resolving the mystery are: Ben and Mick Stone (mentioned above), Ben's family, especially his son, Cal, and Dr Saanvi Bahl. Additionally, non-passengers, Jared, Drea and Vance, provide help and support with the tasks. Last, but not least, is Zeke, an anomaly.

To quote K from Men In Black, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals ..."

Mob mentality means that a growing number of people mistrust the people from the plane, many think that they are aliens. Others consider that they perform miracles and they form cults (remember, this is America). The Government, which has been conducting illegal experiments on some passengers to see if the callings can be replicated and possibly weaponised, eventually treats them as criminals.

Obviously, without proof, the 'outside world' does not buy in to "the world will end tomorrow" theory. It's down to the Stone family to defeat the odds. 

The end of the series will be: (1) the good guys save the world, (2) they got it wrong and life goes on, possibly without them, or (3) the world ends. If you plan to watch it but don't want spoilers, stop reading. Otherwise... 

 

Conclusion.

1. The story would have been better in three series rather than four, which dragged it out a bit. However, those four seasons covered five years so, arguably, it could have been dragged out even longer. 

2. I've omitted some of the major plot details, such as Cal's leukaemia and a main player, Angelina. This will leave something to discover for those who plan to watch the series. Zeke is also difficult to classify here so viewers will have his character to look forward to.

3. SPOILER ALERT: The ending was inevitable - but nicely tied up the loose ends. Except for Cal, whose journey was slightly different from the others, most of the passengers who survived did so with their memories intact. 

4. MAJOR SPOILER ALERT: The flight landed as scheduled, five years before the main story took place. People were reunited. Lives continued, possibly better than they woud have done. Mick found Zeke.

Book Review: The Hearing Trumpet

Written by Leonora Carrington, a surrealist who is mostly known for her artworks, this has to be the most surreal book I've read. It begins almost normally and becomes increasingly bizarre to... I'm not sure what:  supernatural, fantasy, post-apocalyptic? 

It features a deaf elderly grandmother whose obnoxious grandson persuades his parents to put her in an old folks home. She's not allowed to take her cats into the retirement complex so her friend and neighbour  (who spends much of her time in a fantasy world) takes them in. 

The retirement village is run by not-very-nice people but most of the other residents are friendly, each living in run-down cottages that were reminiscent of fairy tale buildings. 

Life progressively gets more surreal and the ending is a complete surprise. 

According to Wikipedia "92-year-old Marian Leatherby lives in Mexico with her son Galahad, his wife Muriel, and her grandson Robert. Upon being gifted a hearing trumpet by her friend Carmella, Marian discovers that her family is planning to put her in an institution, which indeed happens. At the institution Marian finds herself drawn into surreal and occult intrigue, conspiracy and adventure."

 Related link 

 

Book Review: Reacher - Die Trying

'Die Trying' is the second Reacher book which I have also finished reading in a day. Fast-paced, it's difficult to put down so "well done" to author Lee Child. I preferred the switch to third person, too.

The question is - is it too action-packed? It's certainly exhausting to read about people who are tireless heroes who seem to function with virtually no sleep and almost no food or drink and who have also survived physical damage. In real life, many people can't even crawl to work if they catch a cold but maybe, at least in our heads, we aspire to be heroes. Most of us can't do it ourselves so we read about it because - who wants to read about lives as ordinary as our own?

The story involved 'great minds' including POTUS, the head of the FBI and the head of the US Military yet, sometimes, they overlooked the obvious for a few pages. However, Reacher saves the day. Again. He's dependable, logical, with a strong sense of 'right' and 'wrong'.

Good news - although there were still passionate scenes, they were not clumsy (as they were in the first book) and there was still wanton torture by the 'baddies' but the author was not so fixated on it. More good news - there was an absence of unnecessary gratuitous swearing, the sign of a competent wordsmith.

Next week, it's on to the third Reacher book. I'll keep you posted.

Review of Reacher - Killing Floor.

Book Review: Reacher - Killing Floor

Having watched and enjoyed the first two seasons of Reacher with Alan Ritchson, I began to read the books by Lee Child. The first book, Killing Floor, was written in the first person. It must have been a while since I watched series 1 because I didn't really recognise most of the story in the book - I'll need to re-watch the series again, soon. 

Lee Child writes well. I found the book gripping and finished it within 24 hours. However, a couple of niggles were: the detailed graphic violence from people who were enjoyed torturing their victims and the romance scenes. Regarding the violence - it seems that either the author is obsessed with genitals or he thinks his readers will be. Regarding the romance, the scenes felt like carbon copies of other middle-aged authors, who think that perfection in love-making is something they wish to achieve.

I think I preferred the TV adaptation but it was a good book and well worth reading.

I've just started the second book, Die Trying. I was surprised to find that he had switched to writing in the third person, which felt more comfortable to read.
Review - Die Trying.

Election Special (be careful what you wish for)

Thank you, Monty Python, for this ridiculous sketch which, over the last few years, has become even more relevant:

 

So, 60ish Years Ago...

In 1965, during his first term as prime minister, Labour Party leader, Harold Wilson, nominated the Beatles for MBEs, an unprecedented award for pop musicians. This was in recognition of their sizeable contribution to the British economy by creating a huge international  export market.

Alongside this, they were rewarded with propping up the economy via their taxes. To 'celebrate', they released a pre-punk rock song, "Taxman" as they were advised by a leading accountancy firm that, despite their success, two of the Beatles were "close to being bankrupt" and the other two could soon be. Being propelled into the UK's top tax bracket, the Beatles were subject to a 95% 'supertax' introduced by the Labour government. 

Coming clean about my disdain for Harold Wilson, it started when I was aound 14 years old and knew nothing about politics (to be fair, I still don't). To me, he just hated teenagers and pop music. He effectively closed down pirate radio so that our daily joy was taken away (with hindsight, there may have been a justifiable, political/financial reason) and replaced it with government controlled sanitised Radio One.

Of course, his opposition leader, Ted Heath, was no better but he didn't take away my music so I didn't care.

The moral of this story is... look for the policies that allow freedom of choice, not Big Brother. And good luck with that because I doubt you'll find any. 

Old Rebel Rocker!