Personal by Lee Child****
Reading dates: 27 January – 02 March 2023
Even if I found the plot of Personal a little far fetched, I always enjoy an assassination story and the settings of London and Paris are a wonderful change to the backwaters of the US, despite the neverending descriptions of roads and routes, which I could hardly follow.
The plot carries until the very last pages and is satisfyingly resolved but one thing that struck me is the lack of impact of a near miss on Reacher, especially as this is a first person narrative. I feel that was glossed over as was the anxiety his sidekick feels and which she has to treat with pills (but we have no narrativeevidence of it, other than the prop of the pills).
There are some wonderful moments, though, such as the Alice in Wonderland house, and some of the gangster depictions.
Learning from Reacher
On kicking doors
Which we did by kicking down the door. Which was easy enough. A question of force, obviously, which is the product of mass times velocity squared, and that squared part puts a premium on speed, not weight. Bulking up by twenty pounds at the gym is good, because it throws an extra twenty pounds in the mix, but moving your foot twenty percent faster is better. It does you four hundred percent of a favor. Because it gets squared. Which means multiplied by itself. Money for nothing. Like in baseball. You can swing a heavy bat slow or a light bat fast, and the slow heavy bat gets you a high fly to the warning track, and the light fast bat puts the ball in the bleachers. A principle too often forgotten. People treat doors with too much respect. They eye them warily and shuffle close and then do little more than press their soles against the wood.
On soldiers
“I never volunteer for anything. Soldier’s basic rule.”
Which is all we’ll ever need. Smart people, working hard, paying attention, thinking laterally.
On the Reacher Brothers
She struggled up out of her chair and stepped over and put her hands on my brother Joe’s shoulders, from behind, which was all part of the choreography, and she had bent and kissed his cheek from the side, like she always did, and she had asked him, “What don’t you need to do, Joe?”
Joe hadn’t answered, because our silence was part of the ritual. She had said, “You don’t need to solve all the world’s problems. Only some of them. There are enough to go around.”
She had kissed him again, and then she had struggled around behind me, measured the width of my shoulders with her small hands, and felt the hard muscles, as always, still fascinated by the way her tiny newborn had grown so big, and even though I was close to thirty by then she said, “You’ve got the strength of two normal boys. What are you going to do with it?”
I hadn’t replied. Our silence was part of the ritual. She answered for me. She said, “You’re going to do the right thing.”
On the British (and the Scots)
“The British ruled the world. And the Welsh are British. Just as much as the Scots. Just as much as the English, even.”
I didn’t answer.
On survival
So we have to survive four separate times. How likely is that?”
“Like the World Series. A big ask, but someone does it every year.”
On breathing
Do you breathe well through your nose?”
He said, “What?”
“No nasal congestion, no deviated septum, no adenoidal conditions, no current flu-like symptoms?”
Previous reviews of the Jack Reacher series
#1 Killing Floor ***
Jack Reacher gets off a bus in a small town in Georgia. And is thrown into the county jail, for a murder he didn’t commit.
#2 Die Trying ***
Reacher is locked in a van with a woman claiming to be FBI. And ferried right across America into a brand new country.
#3 Tripwire **
Reacher is digging swimming pools in Key West when a detective comes round asking questions. Then the detective turns up dead.
#4 The Visitor ***
Two naked women found dead in a bath filled with paint. Both victims of a man just like Reacher.
#5 Echo Burning ***
In the heat of Texas, Reacher meets a young woman whose husband is in jail. When he is released, he will kill her.
#6 Without Fail ****
A Washington woman asks Reacher for help. Her job? Protecting the Vice President.
#7 Persuader ****
A kidnapping in Boston. A cop dies. Has Reacher lost his sense of right and wrong?
#8 The Enemy ***
Back in Reacher’s army days. a general is found dead on his watch.
#9 One Shot *** (2012)
A lone sniper shoots five people dead in a heartland city. But the accused guy says, ‘Get Reacher’.
#10 The Hard Way ***
A coffee on a busy New York street leads to a shoot-out three thousand miles away in the Norfolk countryside.
#11 Bad Luck and Trouble ***
One of Reacher’s buddies has shown up dead in the California desert, and Reacher must put his old army unit back together.
#12 Nothing to Lose **
Reacher crosses the line between a town called Hope and one named Despair.
#13 Gone Tomorrow ****
On the New York subway, Reacher counts down the twelve tell-tale signs of a suicide bomber.
#14 61 hours ****
In freezing South Dakota, Reacher hitches a lift on a bus heading for trouble.
#15 Worth Dying For ***
Reacher runs into a clan that’s terrifying the Nebraska locals, but it’s the unsolved case of a missing child that he can’t let go.
#16 The Affair ****
Six months before the events in Killing Floor, Major Jack Reacher of the US Military Police goes undercover in Mississippi, to investigate a murder.
#17 A Wanted Man *****
A freshly-busted nose makes it difficult for Reacher to hitch a ride. When at last he’s picked up by two men and a woman, it soon becomes clear they have something to hide.
#18 Never Go Back *****
When Reacher returns to his old Virginia headquarters he is accused of a sixteen-year-old homicide and hears these words: ‘You’re back in the army, Major. And your ass is mine.’
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