The book I love to read

I love reading many different kinds of books, the genres ranging from detective novels to mythological tales to historical biographies to romance and then, finally, thrillers.  It is impossible for me to pick a favorite amongst my vast collection, and yet, if I were indeed given the task of choosing one, it would undoubtedly be the first book in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child, Killing Floor. This book introduces Jack Reacher, the tough, ex- military policeman who has been out of a job (since he left his old one as a military policeman) for the past six months. This book is based in Margrave, a small town in southern Georgia.

The book opens with Reacher in a small diner called Eno’s where he is found eating bacon and drinking coffee while reading an out of date newspaper. It is quite a leisurely atmosphere that Lee Child creates with the opening scene of the book, which soon changes as Reacher hears the screech of tires on gravel and the wail of police sirens. Being as intelligent as he is surmised to be, he correctly guesses that they are there for him, as the bar comprised of Eno himself, a lonely old man in the corner and two old waitresses, who wouldn’t have required so strong a force to subdue either of them, or even them together, as a whole. As the team enters, with “neat textbook moves”, Reacher stays calm when they tell him to step away from the table and “slowly put your (his) hands where we (they) can (could) see them”. He wryly thinks that he won’t go down with his hands raised even if “the entire police department came with their howitzers”. “Not in front of these country boys”, he thinks to himself. When they cautiously approach him and ask him if he understands his Miranda rights, he remains silent, as from long experience, he knows that anything he says will be used against eventually, even if he was innocent of whatever he was being accused of. What happens next is that Reacher is taken to the police station where he is accused of murder. The events after that pick up their pace, as they are wont to (This is a Lee Child novel after all) with Reacher and another guy called Paul Hubble (a banker, who appears to be involved in the murder) are transferred to the state prison facility where Reacher is involved in two fights with the gangs inhabiting the prison, the first fight being about establishing his status (this is a kind of ritual which takes place in almost every prison where every new prison inmate has to prove how “tough” he is by standing up to the pre-established “alpha-gang” of the prison, call it a “battle of wits” or, in general cases, a physical fight to see who becomes the next “alpha” and which gang chooses to accept the “alpha” as one of their own) and the second taking place owing to a trap by the prison superintendent, Spivey. The rest of the events of the book follow rapidly after this, with Reacher proved innocent but sticking around even after he is released from jail to provide assistance to the Margrave PD, because he felt like he ought to help out Hubble, more importantly because the murder victim was his own brother Joe (which was the main motivation) and lastly, because of the pretty officer Roscoe , who too, for her part, was infatuated with him and wanted him to stay(she invited him to stay in her home until the murder was cleared up). The rest of the book after the events that I have described showcases the various steps taken by Reacher as he, with Roscoe’s help clears up the mystery and also, ends up helping the town of Margrave as well by exposing the fraudulent Kilner foundation and the almost entirely corrupt PD o the town.

Towards the end of the book, we see Reacher parting ways with Roscoe and getting up on a bus, whose destination, in keeping with his nature of aimlessness, he does not know and care to find about as he generally likes drifting around, and exploring different places and thus, can be described as a person with “no middle name” and “no permanent home address”, Jack-none-Reacher, who carries with him only a folding toothbrush, a few dollars and his expired military ID denoting him as Major Reacher, 110^th M.P , Homicide, Special Investigations Unit, Virginia. OK, the description of his ID is something that I have not come across in any of his books that I have read, to be honest, but still, this is how I imagine the description on his ID to be, because the words, in that order, at least in my personal opinion, seem quite impressive and well, it just creates an effect.

Well, that’s Jack-none-Reacher for you folks, and I hope that you all come to like him (or not! free country after all). As for my part, if it ever came to that, I would love to be like him, for, I consider him to be a real life hero, a hero who is like all us and yet a person worth being inspired by. So, the last thing I would like to tell all of you is to go check out the series, which I am quite sure all of you will enjoy. Happy reading folks! Stay tuned to my blog for regular updates.