One Shot by Lee Child. The ninth Jack Reacher thriller. Jack Reacher is something of a superhero, a superman, really--doesn't put a foot wrong. Neither does Child, in this fast smooth read, except for one ridiculous glitch where he has a bad guy speak some ridiculous lines just to help wrap up the plot. How could he do that? Not cool. But I forgive him, for the rest of the ride.
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly. The MC here is Michael Haller, the lawyer of the title, a sleaze lawyer with sleazes for clients: it is really hard to like the guy. But he has a code he lives by and being a citizen of the U.S. one has to respect that code, right? that all people are presumed innocent, esp. if they can afford a lawyer who will get them off on a technicality. In this page turner--I staying awake until 3 A.M. to find out how it ended--Haller risks his and his young daughter's lives, searching for the truth about a friend's murder. Lots of twists and even a few surprises.
End of Story by Peter Abrahams. This is billed as a thriller. I have always thought that technically in a thriller the reader gets a glimpse into the mind of the villain--sees the world from his POV. This novel is unrolled strictly from the third person point of view of an aspiring writer, Ivy, who works as a waitress to pay her bills. (The strict POV makes for some fancy dancing, on the part of the author.) Ivy gets a job teaching writing at a local prison and becomes convinced that one of the inmates in her class is innocent. It probably helps his case with her that he is very attractive. There is a lot about writing in this novel, and that was a definite plus. But the draw is the story, of course. There were a lot of moments when I said (yeah, out loud, they were those kinds of moments!) 'Oh, no, she didn't do that?' This book is a page turner, "a novel of suspense" (it says on the cover) yeah, but somehow in a category all its own. I will definitely check out more of Abrahams' work.
The Depths of Solitude by Jo Bannister. "...Mr Turnbull had met dogs like that. They didn't bark, they didn't growl, they didn't show their teeth--but you knew that if you handled the next few minutes wrong, you were going to be picking fangs out of your leg." Mr. Turnbull is thinking about the protagonist, Brodie Farrell. Elsewhere described by her lover this way: "She looked like a geisha, thought like a samurai and talked like a sumo wrestler." But to get back to those fangs--that description could be used to characterize Bannister's prose. She is fond of similes, and they are usually sharp and stab you unexpectedly: "Deacon followed him; not exactly like a lamb, more like a wolf who has unaccountably been mistaken for a lamb and is wondering whether he should eat very fast or try bleating." This is the English (cosy ?) novel of the group and it is as much a suspenseful thriller as the others--picture Brodie being stalked by a villain (old fashioned word, but he is of the old fashioned tie 'em to the tracks variety) with the technical genius to rig up fun rides on a run away elevator. (Bannister unleashes lots of similes, describing that ride.) The villain is the sort who is able to conjure up the darkest most awful moments a person can suffer.
I read these in quick succession. I hadn't read any of the writers before--not sure how I missed Child and Connelly. Great fare for the beach.
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