Book Review: A Wanted Man by Lee Child

"Some old guy once said the meaning of life is that it ends. Which was inescapably true. No one lives forever."

 

I know more about Jack Reacher from the Tom Cruise and Alan Ritchson movies and series than from Lee Child's novels, having read only Killing Floor, the first in the series.

In keeping with the trend, I was prompted to read the 17th instalment, A Wanted Man, after watching Season 3 on Prime, which is based on Child's seventh book, Persuader.

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Reacher's unintended exploits—or troubles, depending on how you see it—begin when he hitches a ride on a deserted highway to Nebraska with two men and a woman, ostensibly headed for Chicago. He's en route to Virginia to meet a girl. But once in the car, the highly decorated ex-military cop quickly senses something's off: the men appear friendly, making small talk, yet oddly evasive; the woman seems scared; and the route doesn't quite add up. His suspicion is confirmed when the woman, seated in the back, manages to warn him with a series of coded eye blinks through the rear-view mirror. Saying more would ruin the suspense for those who haven't read the book. 

Elsewhere, a Kansas sheriff is investigating the murder of a US trade attaché, a cover for a CIA station chief. The body, found at a nearby diner, is central to the plot of A Wanted Man.

Over the next forty-eight hours, Reacher finds himself in the middle of a dangerous situation that unfolds with each chapter. It involves conspiracy theories, an undercover operation, disappearing witnesses, and a potential terror plot with links to both domestic and Middle Eastern, likely Syrian, terrorists. Reacher teams up with Julia Sorenson, a sharp and initially reluctant FBI special agent from the Omaha field office, who's investigating the diplomat's murder. The plot spirals into a national security issue, pulling in FBI agents from other field offices, the State Department and the CIA.

A Wanted Man is a slow-building thriller that moves at a steady pace—a departure, I assume, from many of the other Reacher novels and their screen adaptations. Reacher spends considerable time thinking and analysing each situation before making his move. For example, he's admirably restrained as the two men drive for hours—across state lines, through Nebraska, Kansas and Ohio—without quite reaching their destination. He resists the urge to confront them, choosing instead to bide his time so he can get to the bottom of who they are and what they're actually up to. Here, Lee Child captures the tension of the seemingly endless road trip really well.

The ending is trademark Reacher, though. He storms in, guns blazing, for a high-stakes showdown inside an abandoned, blast-proof military installation—likened to a capsized battleship—in the middle of nowhere. It's so massive that the author details its secretive interior over several pages. I had trouble picturing it in my head.

I was so impressed with Lee Child's writing in Killing Floor—precise, with clipped sentences—that I promised myself I'd read more of his books. In A Wanted Man, I especially liked how Child effortlessly repeats certain words and phrases across consecutive sentences within the same paragraph. I don't recall coming across that style in anything else I've read. Hopefully, A Wanted Man will spur me to pick up more of his novels. 

My first visit to a comic-book store

It took a long-haul flight from Mumbai to Vancouver for me to finally visit a comic-book store I’d only read about online and watched with envy on The Big Bang Theory.

The comic-book store I went to was on Vancouver Island, in a small, charming place called Coombs, within the district of Nanaimo. Coombs, as you might know, is famous for its Old Country Market—more popularly known as Goats on the Roof—where a family of goats actually lives on the low sodded roof. It attracts over a million tourists every year, apparently.

The comic-book store, as it was simply called, was a single room and not very big. Its walls were lined with storage racks holding dozens of white boxes filled with comics in polyethylene bags, each neatly labelled with the names of superheroes on the side.

When I went in with my family, the place was nearly empty. A young man, presumably the owner, sat at a counter watching something on his phone, while a couple of kids were noisily sifting through trading cards in the centre of the store. I practically had the comic-book store all to myself. I wandered through the shelves, looking for my favourite characters from DC and Marvel, and other imprints. They were all there, and some not so familiar ones too.

With help from my family—since the boxes were quite heavy—I went through hundreds of backdated comic-books, mostly Superman and Batman (my childhood heroes), the Hulk, Flash, Daredevil, Captain America, Punisher, Justice League, Fantastic Four and the Avengers. I picked out several, put them back and then took them out again. Being spoilt for choice wasn’t easy. There were so many old titles, I wanted them all.

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At one point, I decided to collect the multi-part Superman: Funeral for a Friend special series I had always wanted to own. With more help from my family, I spent over an hour searching for all the parts but came up three short. In the end, I dropped the idea and settled for the equally prized Reign of the Supermen! 1993 series instead.

I suppose you could say, “You lose a Superman, you gain a Superman!”

Some three hours later, as I was paying for my stack of comic-books, I suddenly realised I hadn’t seen two other favourite characters from my teens—Tarzan and his son Korak. They were there, all right; I had somehow missed them.

After the owner pointed them out, I got down on my haunches and quickly went through a couple of boxes of early Tarzan issues with their vintage-smelling covers, my comic-book antennae tingling with excitement for a second time that evening. Unfortunately, we were running late, and it was with some reluctance that I put the ape-man back in his box.

Comic-books have brought me endless joy since my school days, and visiting this little haven felt like a dream come true. I’ll be going back to Coombs again, hopefully in the not-too-distant future—for the comic-books and, of course, the goats on the roof.

Short Story: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, 1890, by American writer and poet Ambrose Bierce is the poignant tale of Peyton Farquhar, a well-to-do planter and slave owner sentenced to hang by Union soldiers for attempting to sabotage a railroad bridge in northern Alabama during the Civil War.

Farquhar, described as a secessionist and an ardent supporter of the Southern cause, is minutes away from being executed on the bridge. But just as the noose tightens around his neck, he has an epiphany of sorts—an intense vision of escaping his captors, falling into the river below, swimming against the currents and bullets, reaching the opposite bank and tearing through the woods to finally make it home, to his wife and children.

One can assume that Ambrose Bierce, a Civil War veteran, draws from his own experience to paint a vivid picture of Farquhar’s illusory run for freedom—and, in many ways, his desperate, real-life, yearning to survive the war and go back to a normal life with his family. In that sense, the author masterfully—and poetically—blurs the line between reality and imagination.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is as much a story about the tragic plight of Peyton Farquhar, the soldier, as it is about the brutality and futility of war—in fact, all wars. There is no dignity on the battlefield, neither in victory nor in death. That’s how I interpreted the story and its ending.

A well-crafted and thought-provoking story. One I will be sure to read again in the future.

Post-story, I read that An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was originally published by The San Francisco Examiner in July 1890, and was part of Ambrose Bierce's book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians a year later. It is considered one of the most famous and frequently anthologised stories in American literature. The short story has also been adapted for film and television.

Film Movie: A Stranger in Town, 1943

MGM's A Stranger in Town will hopefully be the first of many classic films I'll be watching in the days ahead. For now, it's a plan, and as far as plans go, I hope I can stick to this one. I picked a good one to start my classic-film adventure.

Directed by Roy Rowland, whose films I'm not yet familiar with, A Stranger in Town is a political drama where "small town meets big justice". But there's a twist: the story is less about politics and more about wit and wisdom.

It all starts when US Supreme Court justice, John Josephus Grant (actor Frank Morgan, the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz) goes on a quiet vacation—duck hunting, actually. But the absence of a proper license unwittingly lands him in the middle of a small-town power struggle, a mayoral election, that wasn't on his agenda.

The justice, who hides his true identity and goes by the name of Joe Grant, finds himself rooting for Bill Adams (Richard Carlson), a young, honest and somewhat naïve lawyer running for mayor against the wealthy and influential incumbent, Connison (Robert Barrat). Connison has the local judge, businessman and sheriff in his pocket, using them to get Adams into trouble with the law and tarnish his public image.

But Joe Grant, the affable, unassuming and quick-witted judge, has a trick or two up his sleeve and helps Adams turn the tables on the crooked mayor. He's aided in this venture by his trusted secretary, Lucy Gilbert (Jean Rogers), who falls for Adams.

The final scene unfolds in dramatic fashion as Justice Grant, the Stranger in Town, takes centre stage in a packed courtroom.

A Stranger in Town is a light-hearted, old-fashioned black-and-white film that's fun to watch, mainly because there's nothing sinister about the corrupt ways of the mayor and his sidekicks. I enjoyed the film as much for the three solid characters as for the slapstick humour, the harmless street-side brawls and fisticuffs, which add to its appeal.