I like to think that I’m a discriminating reader. On average, I read a novel every three or four days so I’m a voracious seeker of stuff to read. I like novels about crime but, when I can, I focus on the more respected authors like Val McDermid, Elizabeth George and James Oswald. Most American authors leave me cold. Perhaps it’s an inbuilt prejudice against the upstart US, but their heroes tend to depend too much on guns and excessive force to solve their problems. Revenge is a recurring theme.
However, I must confess to a guilty secret. I’m a covert fan of Jack Reacher. He’s all I despise in a hero. Ex-army, hobo, muscle-bound, vigilante, ruthless, etc, but I am delighted whenever a new issue appears. I excuse myself, in part, because Reacher’s mother was French and the author, Lee Child is a Brit.
I was delighted some years ago, when flying to some exotic location, to find a Jack Reacher movie on the in-flight entertainment. However, the star was Tom Cruise. Reacher is described as 6ft 5in tall (196cm) and somewhere between 95 and 113 Kg. In technical terms he’s a big bloke. Tom Cruise is 170cm tall and weights 77kg. There seems to be a mismatch. It seems Mr Cruise bought the movie rights for the books and cast himself as the hero. I haven’t bothered looking for the second movie in the series.
Imagine my delight when I discovered Amazon have recently commissioned a TV series based on the books. The first series is The Killing Floor and the star is a big bloke. We watched a couple of episodes the other night and it is as true to the books as I could wish. There’s the gratuitous violence, the sentimental approach to women, the vigilante justice, and the happy ending. Ah, bliss!
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