The main character of this book – or series of books, as I am led to believe – is a man with a pretty abrasive personality. I don’t think I have ever read a book where the main character managed to anger so many people. But he did it in a way that created arguments and unpleasantness. The result was several slightly artificial but nevertheless unpleasant. Can one man really have such an effect? Particularly when he first met his new ‘employer’, Junior Willis. Within several hours he had managed to hack Willis off so much that when Janeway threatened to leave without taking the job, Willis never stopped him and never really came back. The author explained it away by saying that Willis had a bad temper. Perhaps politeness in society is different in Idaho, but that just didn’t ring true.

Characters were picked up, developed to a point, and then just as quickly dropped again. Janeway’s fickleness when it came to suspects was highlighted by how thinly the author tried to point the fingerat one person after another (not very convincingly, unfortunately). Granted, I didn’t pick who was to blame until later in the book, but the guilty party had been introduced quite awkwardly earlier in the book so that when it turned out that it was that person who did it, I felt pretty unsatisfied.

The biggest problem with this book was that it just didn’t flow. It was like a series of hiccups with a bit of harmony in between. I can see what the author was trying to do and I liked the fact that he tried to do something a bit different with the subject matter, but it just didn’t work for me. I want to find out a bit more about the difference between a bibliophile and a bibliomaniac (it wasn’t a distinction I had ever heard of, so one good thing is my curiosity has been piqued) but I just couldn’t buy it. I couldn’t buy the fact that everyone had been in love with the ‘bookwoman’ of the title, and I couldn’t buy the fact that Janeway managed to make his way into the racing circuit without so much as a hitch. I couldn’t buy the amount of time his girlfriend, Erin, spent on the case when she was supposed to be a lawyer, and I struggled with his career change and indecision. Basically I found Janeway arrogant and blundering in a not particularly nice way. I gave it a go, but I won’t read another one of these. They weren’t for me.

Rating: 4/10
ISBN: 0-7318-1307-3
Publisher: Scribner
Year: 2006
Date finished: 6th January 2010
Pages: 337

I took One Shot with me on the flight from London to Adelaide, packing it in my little on board case with several magazines, another book and an iPod, worries that I might run out of things to do on that long haul journey. I always do that – my biggest worry is that I might get stuck somewhere with no reading material. Although I have read another Jack Reacher novel and I knew this one would be good, I hadn’t remember how un-put-downable it actually was. I was completely gripped from the first page.

The story starts with a cold, insane killer who sets himself up in a car park and shoots dead five people who are doing nothing more offensive than going home from work. Five people dead, six shots fired. The police are on to it immediately and with the almost textbook evidence left behind by the killer, the perpetrator is found and apprehended within a matter of hours. Under questioning he says nothing. It is only after he is put in prison and a lawyer visits him that he makes a short statement. He wants to see Jack Reacher.

The clever thing about this novel is that at the beginning, you too are convinced that this is a cut and dried case. Indeed, when Reacher arrives, that impression is compounded when he relates his experience with the accused. As the story goes on, you begin to doubt. Perhaps he did it under duress? Perhaps he was forced? Perhaps…perhaps he didn’t do it? This is what Lee Child is so skilled at – he takes you on a journey where you don’t even realise you are being led, but when you look back, all of the signs are clear…in hindsight. I can’t remember what point I figured it out, but it was very late on in the book – in fact, one fundamental player I didn’t work out until the author actually revealed who it was. He had constructed the story so well without putting in any obvious diversions or false trails that you felt like you were an invisible member of the team who had come together to figure out what was going on.

Reacher is a true hero. Because he is a flawed character, you can’t help but love him. I love the fact that if he is being followed for several pages, you are reassured to discover that actually he knew he was being followed and had already devised a plan to lose his tail. You want him to win – you just can’t help it. He is the ultimate good guy without being irritating, smarmy or artificial. Couple that with a story that is well written, a plot which is complex and gripping and an outcome which is intensely satisfying despite being surprising, and you have escapsim at its best. You can’t help but put the Jack Reacher novels up there with the benchmarks of good popular crime fiction.

Rating: 9/10
ISBN: 9780553815865
Publisher: Bantam Books
Year: 2005
Date finished: 2nd January 2010
Pages: 495