Particularly as I read this immediately after the previous James Patterson novel, it was an interesting contrast. Mankell writes a classic police procedural. The thrilling car chases, near misses, constant threats to the life of the protagonist or his or her immediate family, endless ‘personal connections’ with the case and the detective, are all used sparingly. That makes these books far, far more realistic. Wallander and his team are police officers in a small Swedish town. Not every murder is going to have some personal connection with Wallander. His life isn’t going to be threatened every time. He has a job to do, and that is to find out who committed the crimes and his team work methodically with him to do just that.

Nevertheless, they are page turners. I love Wallander’s instinct and hunches, and I absolutely love his need to think things through, catch a subtle clue in someone’s demeanour or words, and his ability to make connections. His team are fantastic as well. In this book, the original police commissioner, Bjork, has left to be replaced by another female (to join Ann-Britt who became a member of the team two books ago) and the balance is really good. And most importantly, you watch Wallander himself grow, change and develop as the years go on which makes you feel like you are there with him.

This book introduces a murderer who seems to be preying on men who, at first, have no apparent connection to one another. The only similar thing is the method of murder which is cruel, painful and very methodical. One is taken along several investigative lines – Africa and mercenaries, soldiers – but when some connections seem to arise in the form of a number of mysterious deaths of women, the case starts to break and the suspense builds.

Wallander is a real, flawed, emotional and very sharp man who is married to his job, but deserves his role. I know there are only a finite number of the Wallander series and I can now see how disappointed people were when the ‘last one’ was released. I have become so attached to the Inspector and his team already and I am not even halfway through them all. I suspect I know how I am going to feel when I close the cover on the final book as well.

Rating: 9/10
Date finished: 10 September 2011
Copyright: 2000
Pages: 583
Verdict: Bring on the next one.

The Well Thought Out Text

One of the things I love about reading is to immerse myself in the language of a book, poem or article. I love reading works which have clearly taken time to produce. I love reading works which have been researched, mulled over, rewritten, edited, researched further and have genuinely come from the intellectual heart of the author. Unfortunately, due to the ease of production both online and offline, and the fact that the world as I know it is getting faster and faster, demands on time are greater and greater, and the drive to produce content before the next person does is greater than ever, there is a lot of writing out there which is truly awful.

Sadly, it isn’t just on the internet, although I would hazard a guess that around 80% of the writing on the internet is utter crap. Trying to filter the decent writing from the rubbish is a challenge in itself. The beauty of the printed word is that it should have seen the pen of an editor, although scanning newspapers nowadays, even print is not immune to slapdash content production. Sadly, many self-published books fall into the same category. Had they actually been in front of an editor, they too would have been scrapped or relegated to someone’s personal diary space or the old exercise books on the shelf which never saw the light of day.

Which is one of the reasons I haven’t been reviewing. Honestly, if I value the time and effort that people put in to proper reviews (which I do) then I have no right to just throw something out there, whether it is my blog or not. I have mentioned before how dissatisfied I often feel with my writing, and part of that is down to the fact that I haven’t spent the time on it that I should. I am currently trying my hand at writing an actual book, and I have given myself time – time to research, plan, think, experiment, and research more. Unless I can do that with my book reviewing, then I don’t think I am ever going to find true satisfaction with it.

I don’t want well thought out writing to vanish the same way that handwritten letters have. So I feel I need to be part of the dwindling crusade to retain it…

Which leads me on to the other thing I am passionate about, and which I want to explore further in this blog.

The Demise of the Paper Book

If all of the stories on the internet are to be believed, by the time I am an old lady, I will no longer be able to enjoy the pleasure of reading a book in any other form than on a mini computer, pressing buttons or swiping screens rather than turning pages. Apparently, paper books are going to disappear in 5 years, 10 years or 50 years (depending on which futurist you care to listen to). The virtues of the eBook reader are being touted everywhere and I don’t doubt that technology will win out. I am not so deluded to believe that progress won’t continue. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

The thought of not being able to flick through the pages of a book, smell the paper, feel it in my hands, pick it off my bookshelf or discover it in a little second-hand shop truly breaks my heart. All of the benefits of ‘sharing’ and ‘collaborating’ and ‘changing the text on the fly’ and ‘carrying a million books around at once’ (all well and good, but remember we still only exist on this planet for 70 or 80 years and in that time we can still only read several thousand books) are great, but they do nothing to ease my heartache. I adore books and I always will. I adore the feel of a new book when it arrives. I love holding books of 500 pages or more. I love hunting bookshelves whether in a library, in my own house or in a shop. I love the peace that comes from sitting with myself and a book knowing that nothing can get in the way – no-one can intrude, no-one can demand anything of me, I don’t have to chat to anyone or justify anything. The battery won’t go flat, there is no ‘collaboration’ or ‘conversation’ (I will choose when I want that), the words will always be there without ever going obsolete or demanding me to upgrade or buy a new device. The publisher can’t take my pages from me, or change what they say. I can close the book and hand it to someone, or leave it somewhere for someone else to enjoy. Perhaps these things that I love so much are going to be things of the past, but that doesn’t mean I can’t lament them. I constantly lament the loss of the letter even though I know that all we have now (and I suspect all we will have from now) is the impersonal, dashed-off email. And I will lament the loss of the book.

Yes, I am getting old. This is the first time I have felt it – the first time I have looked at a new technology and thought ‘I can’t do this’. This is the first time I have felt myself resisting not because it isn’t practical, but because emotionally, I don’t want to be forced to give up the thing I love. I know people far older than me who think I am being ridiculous. That is their opinion. I know people far older than me who have told me to ‘get with it’ but I just won’t. Technology is inevitable. It gives you a lot, but it also takes a lot away. I am only on this planet for another, maybe 50 years. It isn’t long. In that time, I want to maintain at least one of the things which makes me happy. Destroy the last paper book the day after I die (or better still, bury it with me) but I for one will still be reading them as long as I possibly can, even if I am the only person in the world to do so.

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