Next up for discussion here at #AudioBookClub:
"The Sentinel" - The 25th instalment in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series.
Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series has sold over 100,000,000 copies to date. Somewhere in the world a Jack Reacher book is sold once every nine seconds.
The books follow the adventure of former military policeman Jack Reacher. (Child chose “military policeman” because military policemen have to be the toughest of the tough. The idea being that if a Special Forces soldier makes trouble, somebody’s got to be tough enough to arrest them).
Reacher is six foot five, scruffy and physically frightening to behold. He lives an itinerant life, spending his retirement travelling the United States with only his passport, his bank card and his toothbrush. No toothpaste strangely, just a toothbrush.
Just about every Reacher novel - and this one is no exception - starts with the protagonist arriving in a new town or city - normally on a far from salubrious Greyhound bus.
On his way from the bus station to buy himself a cup of coffee, he will inevitably come across a citizen in distress, punch someone bad in the face and spend the next four hundred pages unravelling a mysterious plot that has something to do with people trafficking or foiling a plot to blow something up, punching lots of people in the head on the way.
They’re all the same.
This is not a complaint. These books may not be for you, but for some on us, they're like a comfy pair of slippers
Jeff Harding’s lugubrious - even grumpy - monotonous reading really brings these books alive
Whether Reacher is pouring a cup of coffee or driving a car off a cliff, Harding’s world weary intonation remains the same.
When Reacher is sizing up three armed opponents in a dark alley, it sounds like Harding could be reading a shopping list.
It feels really strange to be saying that the monotonous narration really brings the character alive, but I find it joyous.
Let us know what you think.
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“The Sentinel” Jack Reacher Book 25
Written by Lee Child and Andrew Child. Narrated by Jeff Harding
