Some Background – Authors and Characters
The ‘Reacher’ Example
So, what am I thinking about when I say ‘authors and characters’? I often find myself chatting with friends and the conversation turns to what we like to read. Almost invariably, if we get on to the subject of detective and crime fiction (which we usually do very quickly), the first author who is mentioned is Lee Child and the first character is Jack Reacher! I’m not surprised at that and I think that having Tom Cruise starring as Reacher probably helped his popularity even more. Having said that, Child and Reacher were already well known and, ironically, for real afficionados, I believe that Tom Cruise would never have been their choice in a million years. I don’t think he made a bad job of it but, for me, Liam Neeson would have been a far better bet. Perhaps he was considered but it was felt that his character of Bryan Mills in the Taken series was too recent and too close in style to Reacher, I don’t know.
The Jack Reacher books were recommended to me in 2005 and, since then, I have read all of them and I have them on order on my Kindle as the new ones come out. (Perhaps a piece on the merits of a Kindle would be a good topic for future blogs). I like the books and I think Lee Child has done a fantastic job with them, not least as he is British but still has an intimate knowledge of the background to his books and the environment in which they are set. I also like his focus in that, as far as I’m aware, he has concentrated exclusively on Reacher to the extent that number 24 came out in October 2019.
The only thing I would say is that, although I read them as they come out and can’t see myself stopping, I am getting just a little tired of Jack and I just wonder where Lee Child is going to go with him as he, inevitably, gets older. What do you think? Despite that, I am looking forward to the TV series which I believe is coming soon, to Netflix, I guess. Any chance of a new character, Lee? As I write this, of course, we now know that Lee has passed on the principal responsibility for the Reacher books to his brother, Andrew. I have only seen the first one under the new management and it was quite interesting to read it. I have written a post about it and that will be coming soon.
One particular thing that I have liked about the Reacher books is the fact that I associate author and character with each other, almost as a package. I like the author and admire their work but the person or people I am really interested in are the characters. I want to get to know them, form a picture of them in my mind and identify with them, if I can. Prior to discovering Reacher, my main hero in the same vein was Harry Bosch and, similarly, he and Michael Connelly became a package. I suppose I also have an affection for Harry Bosch because he makes no concessions to the ageing process but still accepts he is getting older – even older than me!
A Few More Examples
As I’ve said already, it is this idea of an author/character package which I really like and which I will spend time on in future blogs. While I have read many books with great plots, that is not always the case and, sometimes, the plots/storylines can be a little repetitive. Consequently, I really feel that the reader needs something else to maintain their interest and get them to read more from a particular author. For me, as I’ve already said several times, that extra ingredient is the characters and that is what really attracts me to the authors I like and what I will be talking about to a large extent in the blog. Without going into too much detail at the moment, there are many but some of my favourites are Robert Crais and Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, Harlen Coben and Myron Bolitar, and David Baldacci and Amos Decker and Aloysius Archer. Two that I have found more recently but which are excellent are John Lescroart and Dismas Hardy and Steve Cavanagh and Eddie Flynn. And, most recently, John Sandford and Lucas Davenport. Of course, these are all based in the United States but there are some good British ones as well such as Ian Rankin and Rebus, William McIlvanney and Laidlaw, Christopher Brookmyre and Jack Parlabane, Peter May and Li Yan in his China thrillers, Peter Robinson and Alan Banks and Peter James and Roy Grace. Of course, I like the fact that a few of these are Scottish! I appreciate that some of these names will ring bells with you but there will be others you will never have heard of. Don’t worry, I’ll cover all of them as we work through the blog and, when I do, I’ll give you hyperlinks so that you can read more about them in addition to seeing my personal opinions!
Just as I mention Scottish crime authors, I think it’s worth making an early reference to one of the quirkiest PIs that I have come across and, to be honest, I can’t even remember how I found him! Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer in his forties and we first find him during the reign of Henry the Eighth. Shardlake is a real anti-hero with a crooked back, which gives him considerable trouble, and very little charisma, certainly that is detectable at the outset. However, as we get to know him and we see how he operates, using his many contacts in high places (not least with some of Henry’s wives) he becomes much more interesting and remarkably successful in solving his cases.
I have developed a real affection for Shardlake, not least because his creator, C. J. Sansom was at school with me, although we didn’t know each other, but, unfortunately, we may have seen the last of the books as Chris Sansom has been seriously ill. Naturally, we wish him all the best in his fight against his illness and I am pleased to say that I believe he is in recovery mode at the moment. I will spend a bit of time on the Shardlake series in a future blog and try to convince you to give him a try. I must say that anyone I know who has tried him has enjoyed his adventures
So, enough of that for now. I just wanted to make the point that, for me, it has been the authors with the most appealing and interesting principal characters that I have been drawn to. It doesn’t mean to say I haven’t enjoyed many books with characters I would regard as less interesting people. I just find it easier if I can identify with the main character and, particularly, if he or she seems intelligent and, despite the nature of the storylines involved, has a sense of humour. Of course, they always tend to be tough guys but that doesn’t mean they can’t also be entertaining!
So, on to the posts, the meat of my blog, and I hope you enjoy them and find them interesting. I will try to put on a new one every week so that means they will mount up and show the most up to date one first. Please try not to miss out on the earlier ones if you have come to the blog sometime after I launched it as there are a few early ones which I think act as a good foundation for what comes afterwards. In particular, I think the first is quite an important one. It describes the point when I really felt I had cracked it with detective or crime fiction. I don’t think I’ve looked back since!