Responding to the remark that it is a bit surprising that protagonist Jack Reacher doesn’t even make an appearance until page 47 in “One Shot,” the latest thriller from Lee Child, the former BBC director and writer-turned best-selling novelist replied that one must “give people what they’re expecting” and a little bit more.
“I tried to change it around this time,” said Child in a telephone interview from France. “I really need to keep everything fresh, which is why Reacher is a loner, why he doesn’t live anywhere, doesn’t have a job or a settled group of associates. If I’d been doing this kind of soap opera thing for nine books, I think I’d get kind of bored with it. So for my own sake, I keep everything different in each book.”
Although Reacher doesn’t make an appearance until well into the second chapter, readers will still find their nerves stretched as taut as piano wire.
In the first chapter, which sets up the novel’s premise, Child’s descriptions of a sniper/killer’s care and technical facility, the forensic smarts of local law enforcement officials and the vulturelike instincts of the press echo the sort of detailed writing and pacing one usually expects from writers like Michael Crichton or Patricia Cornwell. But Reacher’s hardboiled demeanor and the tough-guy edginess of the prose readily identify “One Shot” as pure Lee Child.
“I love writing those action scenes,” Child said, “because they’re really choreographed in my head. It’s almost like I’m describing what I’m seeing in a kind of phantom movie.”
Opening with a scene guaranteed to bring back nightmares of the sniper scare in the Washington, D.C., area, this time, the sniper is picking off pedestrians in an unnamed Indiana city (that the city is anonymous makes the story that much more eerie for readers, as the place could stand in for any number of metro areas).
When local law enforcement officials follow a trail of clues back to the apartment of James Barr (ex-Army infantry specialist who did time as a sniper in the Gulf War), it seems like an open-and-shut case. But the suspect utters two sentences that throw a monkeywrench into the wheels of justice: “You’ve got the wrong man” and “Get me Jack Reacher.”
Oddly enough, when Reacher does show up, his plans aren’t to help Barr. “The first shock in the book,” said Child, “is that Reacher is showing up to make sure the guy goes down for it.” A far cry from Reacher’s usual role as a sort of outsider/knight- errant, showing up to defend the underdog. Like everyone else, Reacher believes Barr is the man who is responsible for the shootings. Further investigation convinces Reacher that Barr is, indeed, innocent and the former military cop teams up with Barr’s attorney (who happens to be the local DA’s daughter) to clear Barr’s name.
As Child rightly observes: “It’s one of those books where nothing is what it seems – everything is completely different by the end. Indeed, Reacher finds himself going toe to toe with a group of adversaries that include Russian gangsters and a truly disturbing octogenarian.
Child also takes time to spotlight the American obsession – by the media and the public – with fear, as he does in this passage:
“A story needs the guy to be still out there. A story needs the guy roaming, sullen, hidden, shadowy, dangerous. It needs fear. It needs to make everyday chores exposed and hazardous, like pumping gas or visiting the mall or walking to church.”
Child cleverly leaves the besieged Midwestern town unnamed, instilling a sense of deja-vu in all American readers who will remember the recent Washington sniper incident. “That was big in the news at the time I was thinking about the book,” Child said. “And I was thinking about that feeling of vulnerability that the population would generally have. Even though the chances of an individual being killed (by a sniper) are infinitesimally small, it kind of puts a brake on the whole life of the community if everybody is worried about being exposed in the open air.”
And on the subject of feeling comfortable with life, Child, ending the interview to continue a lazy afternoon in sunny southern France, assures long-time readers that Reacher will never become a “kind of homebody, pipe and slippers type of guy. He’s got this rootless drive that will always keep him moving.”
Dorman T. Shindler, a freelancer from Missouri, contributes regularly to several national magazines and newspapers.
One Shot
By Lee Child
Delacorte, 378 pages, $25
