I enjoy steak as much as anyone, but if no one is looking, I’ll take a good hamburger over a great steak 10 times out of 10. It’s a part of being the relentlessly low brow dude that I am. My taste in literature is similar. I have a deal with myself; every other book I read is for fun, alternating with more elevated selections. Since I decide what qualifies as “elevated” a neutral referee might score it 60-40 for the fun books. Fun books can take many forms but I love the mystery/thriller genre above all – this is my literary hamburger. I don’t really know how to review books, but below is a list of some of my current favorites. Feel free to offer your own selections:
1. Lee Child, the Reacher books. Child was an English television writer before moving to New York. He’s about to publish his 14th Jack Reacher book. Reacher is a former Army Major who served as an investigator for 15 years before retiring early from the peacetime Army. Now he wanders the country wearing the clothes on his back, a toothbrush in his pocket. He has an ATM card, but no credit cards, no cell phone, no car, no other possessions of any kind. When his clothes get dirty he buys a new set and throws the old ones away. He’s kind of a modern day Kung Fu. Reacher is 6’6,” weighs 250 and has little sympathy for people who need a beating. He may also be the most logical thinker ever in print. Child’s plots are inventive and complex. He publishes a new hardback every year and last year’s comes out in paperback around the same time. I just finished it: Gone Tomorrow. It did not disappoint.
2. Michael Connelly, a former newspaper crime reporter, is unusual in that he has two lead characters. Mickey Haller is a lawyer in LA. He doesn’t like working in an office so he has 2-3 identical Lincoln Town cars outfitted as mobile offices. Harry Bosch is an LA police detective who Connelly intentionally paints as beige as possible, and yet he fascinates. The Brass Verdict features both Haller and Bosch and is a top pick.
3. Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist. He delivered three full books to his publisher, the only books he ever wrote, and then dropped dead of a heart attack at 50 before any of them saw print. The first two, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire were both international best sellers. The third book is due out soon. He offers an unusual protagonist in Lisbeth Salander, a 5-foot-nothing, 95 pound, anti-social, computer-hacker, tattooed and pierced-up waif who may, or may not also be a sociopath. International settings and innovative plots make these books a lot of fun.
4. Randy Wayne White I know little about, except that he was a full time fishing guide before becoming a writer. He has no web site. His character is Doc Ford, a marine biologist who lives in his combination house and lab on an island in Florida where he collects marine specimens for clients. (Does this sound at all familiar to you Steinbeck fans?) Doc has a scientist’s mind and a mysterious history that seems to have involved hurting people (Navy Seal maybe?). The setting are unusual, which leads to interesting plots. Captiva is a good place to start.
I plan to read more from George Pelecanos, author of The Night Gardener. He is a very tough and gritty writer; this is inner city crime as I suspect it really is and not for sensitive types. Pelecanos has been a contributing writer for the HBO series, The Wire.
I loved P. D. James’ Devices and Desires, the only one of her 20 books I’ve read. Ms. James is an Englishwoman of a certain age, but she doesn’t shy away from the rough side of life; these aren’t mysteries for girlies. That said, she might reasonably be called “the thinking man’s thrillerist.” (I think I just made that word up.) There is a literary quality to her work you don’t often find amidst the guns and the bodies. I’ll be reading more from James too.
Finally, if you’ve never read Robert Ludlum, you can’t go wrong with the Bourne books. Now I’m talking about the books Ludlum wrote before he died in 2001. His publisher keeps putting out books under his name but I don’t read them.
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