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First Jack Reacher story lacks in substance but not character
Book Review
By Derryll White
Child, Lee (1997). Killing Floor.
Lee Child has inserted Jack Reacher into the brains of the reading and movie-watching public. This is his first novel, from which he went on to movie stardom. Stephen King has proclaimed Reacher the coolest continuing character now on offer. Readers should find the 2012 version of this novel, as it has a very interesting and revealing introduction written by Child, spelling out how he came to writing and to Jack Reacher.
It is interesting how many contemporary mystery/suspense writers owe allegiance to John D. MacDonald – Carl Hiaasen, Randy Wayne White and Child himself, to name only a few. ‘Killing Floor’ has an abundance of action and rolls through minor characters and lives the way Lee Child describes the interstate highway.
Where the story lacks is not in characters but in substance. There is little social commentary outside of a few bows to race and greed. The sub-text of counterfeiting is interesting, however.
Lee Child has obviously done incredibly well with this series, but MacDonald’s Travis McGee and the total rape of the state of Florida still offers a more interesting and lasting unfolding of the world we live in right now.
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Excerpts from the novel:
MEMORY – Like everything else in Margrave, the barbershop looked wonderful. It gleamed with ancient chairs and fittings, lovingly polished and maintained. It had the kind of barbershop gear everybody tore out thirty years ago. Now everybody wants it back. They pay a fortune for it because it creates the way people want America to look. The way they think it used to look.
MILITARY LIFE – But we had this thing that army families have. Your family was your unit. The men on the bases were taught total loyalty to their units. It was the most fundamental thing in their lives. The boys copied them. They translated that same intense loyalty onto their families. So time to time you might hate your brother, but you didn’t let anyone mess with him.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
