Review: A Wanted Man

A Wanted Man by Lee Child
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is only my second Lee Child book but I think I'm getting the picture pretty quickly. Jack Reacher, the giant ex-military policeman, lives a fantasy life as a nomad roaming the USA. No bags, no friends, no regrets. His only long term commitment is a toothbrush, which he carries in his pocket for a few chapters.
Inevitably, he: runs into big trouble by accident or design; plays Sherlock, putting it all together from a stray word in conversation, the cut of someone's shirt or the colour of their pocket lint; kills a bunch of bad guys, as often as not with his elbows alone.
A Wanted Man hits all these marks. It moves relentlessly forward. The writing is clean and direct. I love books like this for when life off the page gets hectic - they're simple to engage with. I picked it up somewhere for a buck and I'll leave it on a bus or something for someone else to find. (That's what Jack Reacher would do.) It's a lot like playing a good Call of Duty game - slick, fast action, reliably satisfying and unpredictable... within predictable parameters.
Lee Child writes with efficiency and verve. While the book isn't explicitly funny, there's a humour about the hijinks that make me more than willing to suspend my disbelief.

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