The Hard Way by Lee Child (Jack Reacher #10)

Originally published 2006 by Bantam Press; this edition 2007

Publisher: Bantam Books

MA15+

(V, D, S, L)

Strong Violence {MA}

Drug Use {PG; Caffeine}

Sexual References {M}

Coarse Language {PG}

Representations

Gender:

Acknowledges the existence of trans people, manages not to be awful in doing so.

Sex:

Default heterosexuality.

Race & Ethnicity:

At least one character is black, at least one is hispanic. One minor character is Russian. One minor character is Chinese and subverts the characters' racial assumptions (pleasant divergence from where the scene looked to be going).

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

One character needs a carer as a result of torture and mutilation. One character is repeatedly referred to as 'almost insane' in his need for control and authority.

Awards

Nominee: Gumshoe Award, Thriller - 2007

I continue to enjoy these books, although after this one I've run out of readily available volumes to read. Yet again, I had a strong feel for the shape of the mystery and which people were involved in what sort of way, but I did not realise how far it went in that direction. I tend to get a bit... frustrated? when characters do not follow what seem to me like obvious lines of investigation and inquiry. On the other hand, I tend to overlook the clues the characters actually do pick up on, or do not draw the same conclusions from them.

At some point I got it into my head that these books are supposedly popular with women. That feels like it makes sense. Reacher comes across as very 'safe' - I don't see this character ever committing sexual assault or otherwise being threatening, and for all that each book features a love interest of the week, it at least is made clear this is casual flings, not a "love 'em and leave 'em" sort of situation, and the character is a lot more pro-woman than I'd expected. Let's just say, if someone I knew wanted to hang out or have a fling with a protagonist, I'd far rather they went with Jack Reacher than James Bond.

These books also had me thinking about satisfaction in fiction and what is right in real life. In all three, Reacher kills the villain(s) rather than arrest them or turn them in to lawful authorities. In most cases this was at least partly premeditated on his part. And this is satisfying, because we in the audience no without doubt these people are guilty, repeat murderers of innocent people. They are confronted in the act of trying to murder and / or torture more people; sometimes they confess too. So that's okay. We can rest assured the bad guys have been stopped, no question about it. But in real life we are not privy to this, especially not to the inner life of murderers as they murder, and we cannot rest on the assurance the right thing was done when someone else puts them down. We need due process because we cannot rely on heroes not to make critical mistakes.

So, this sort of ending I find quite fine and satisfying for fiction, but not at all what I'd want to see in the real world.

This book was my mother's, again, but no one else had yet read it. Actually, I did some poking around my own books and I am pretty sure this is the most recently published book I've ever read. The previous record-holder was probably Midnight Tides or Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It's weird realising I've not read any book from the past six years. Wonder when this record will be beat. Oldest I've read probably The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, which was written during the Baroque period of European Art Music, or the bits of Plato included in Classical Literary Criticism if you want to count those.