The Visitor by Lee Child (Jack Reacher #4)

Originally published 2000 by Bantam Press; this edition 2001

Publisher: Bantam Books

MA15+

(V, S, L, D, N)

Violence

Sexual References

Frequent Coarse Language

Drug Use

Nudity

Representations

Gender:

Tight third-person coupled to the male protagonist, occasional anonymised interludes featuring antagonist-candidates. The novel makes a point of establishing the protagonist's feminist credentials by primarily believing women who filed sexual harassment complaints in the US army.

Sex:

Only heterosexual sexuality represented. Sexual tension and attraction is a strong thread.

Race & Ethnicity:

All characters white US citizens that I was aware of, except a couple of incidental characters each of Syrian and Chinese origin.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

One character is described as having a physical disability. Several characters among the killer's prospective victims are represented as having been traumatised by sexual harassment and rape.

Awards

Barry Award: Nominee

Borrowed this book from my mother's collection, I believe I am its first reader. This along with the previous two novels I read would be the one that started me on my current spy / mystery fiction kick. I quite enjoyed it, despite The Visitor also featuring snippet perspectives from the killer being hunted.

On the one hand, it is a bit frustrating to be several hundred pages ahead of the protagonist on matters like the means of murder (point of order: in real life it wouldn't work, but as a fictional trope, very recognisable), but I suppose I must also give credit to Lee Child for playing fair enough with the facts and what we are shown for this to be doable. I could say it is just because the whole thing smelled a lot like The Poet by Michael Connelly, down to (effectively) the same person being the killer, but I've read two more Jack Reacher novels since then and in all three my gut feelings have been substantially correct tens to hundreds of pages ahead of the characters.

It weirds me out. I've read plenty of mysteries in the past and almost never do I know what's going on before the detective lays it out. I suppose it comes of these leaning more into the realm of thrillers than mysteries?

I don't actually count this against the book, in the sense that I still enjoyed it a great deal, and was quite happy to read all the others in the series that I had to hand.

Nevermind that previous stuff, I've taken it into my head to try a couple more reading projects (current one is 'read books I've bought but haven't read, interspersed with other unread-by-me books in the house and rereads', if we want to dignify that as a project. 'tis really more an artefact of compulsive systematising that enables me to be less paralysed by indecision.).

Since starting work at the library I've been tempted to do something foolish like 'make a goal of reading all the books on the Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC) list'. I feel I can justify that as a sort of professional development activity, familiarise myself somewhat with what's what in children's and youth literature these days. The trouble has been where I would fit this reading in, since it is a huge list - I would take the current year's list and go through that, however many actual years it takes - and I don't want to cut time out from reading other things. It felt a bit more doable when the other idea crept into my head, however.

The other idea is, since I've been having a craving for crime / mystery / spy / thriller fiction of recent, why not take a reading tour of the genre? I've been trying to compile a list of notable authors and would greatly appreciate any recommendations - or just single book recommendations, if someone wrote only a small number worth reading. I tried putting out a call on Twitter previously but didn't get any response. Hopefully people here will know some good ones? Otherwise I'll just have to get by on personal experience and names with big advertising budgets.

When I think about it, I would tend to say science fiction, fantasy, and mystery are the three main genres I read. But I've read hardly any mystery in a long time because the first two get much higher priority from me, especially for purchasing, and I've ironically not used a library for enjoyment in many years.

At the moment my reading pattern is alternating something in my to-read pile with something else from around the house, and I am thinking to make that into a rotation, with a book from the mystery reading tour and one or a small number from the Premier's Reading Challenge added to that. I probably won't do ratings for many of the PRC books, because many especially early on are picture books or 10-minute reads and the prospect is exhausting. Might do a few words about what I thought of them?

Anyway, the point amidst all that rambling, so far as audience participation goes, is a request for author or book recommendations. I've got a couple of other reading projects in mind that I might ask recommendations for later, too, but I'd rather give these a try first. See how it goes.

Edit: Thought I should include the list so far. Those with an asterisk are authors I've read something by already.

Raymond Chandler

Agatha Christie*

P. D. James

Ruth Rendell

Dorothy L. Sayers

Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe)

Dashiell Hammett

Bill Pronzini (Nameless)*

Patricia Cornwell

Sue Grafton

Michael Connelly*

Ross Macdonald

John Le Carre

Elizabeth Peters

John Creasey?

Ian Fleming*

Len Deighton

John Dickson Carr

Edith Pargeter (AKA Ellis Peters - Cadfael)

G. K. Chesterton

Jeffery Deaver

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle*

Orion Arm by Julian May

Originally published 1999; this edition 2000

Publisher: Voyager

M

(V, S, L, D)

Violence

Sexual References

Coarse Language

Drug Use

Representations

Gender:

As with the first novel in this series, first-person narration by the male protagonist. There are also anonymised interludes from the perspective of a male antagonist. Essentially identical to Perseus Spur.

Sex:

First appearance of non-vanilla, non-heterosexual is as degrading exploitation of prisoners for gratification of the privileged classes and each other. There are some incidental trans characters portrayed as grotesque and potentially victims of coercion. One character on the side of the heroes mentions in a throwaway line having previously been in a relationship with another woman. All other depictions of non-normative sexuality are as perversion or punishment.

Race & Ethnicity:

The characters of colour from the previous book return in reduced roles. One new character is from Eastern Europe.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

The characters must deal with aliens of diminutive stature relative to humans, and spend time on one of their vessels. Coercive body modification including transgenderism used as threat, punishment and symbol of moral corruption.

Awards

None of note.

At least the worst of what is mentioned above had a relatively small presence in the story.

In a series like this it is normal, I believe, for the cast to expand and fill out over successive volumes. Here the focus contracts around the narrator / protagonist more tightly, meaning we see less of the characters I liked from the first volume and the new characters have reduced presence compared to last time.

I also dislike in mysteries getting anonymised snippets from the or a villain's perspective. The additional context gets in the way of my desire for 'pure' detection, where we have only information and perspectives available to the protagonists and they must work out what is happening, how and why, without our knowing for sure. In this case, because the last book left us with a strongly favoured suspect for a traitor, the anonymised perspective here made it pretty immediately clear to me which other person it actually was and spoiling what may have been meant to be a twist toward the end of the novel. I probably would have been surprised otherwise (because I'd not noticed a significant clue in the first book).

This would have been a satisfying end to the story except that all the outcomes promised on the first page of the first book had not yet happened, so I ordered a cheap copy of the final volume. This copy, along with the first volume, was picked up from a discount bin at a newsagent most of a decade ago.

Perseus Spur by Julian May

Originally published 1998; this edition 1999

Publisher: Voyager

M

(V, S, L, D)

Violence

Sexual References / Mild Sex Scenes

Coarse Language

Drug Use (Medical, Augmentative, Social Drinking)

Representations

Gender:

1st-person narration by a male character, most of the other characters are also men. The only conversations we become aware of that took place between women also concerned a man. Gender roles are superficially egalitarian.

Sex:

Story is infused with presumed heterosexuality. One character is asked if she might be in a relationship with another woman, but denies this and later engages in a heterosexual relationship.

Race & Ethnicity:

Most characters are white, those with known origins being from North America. One minor character is black, one major character is Mexican - there is Spanish sprinkled in the story from both him and the protagonist - one major character is from off-world by way of the Caribbean.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

One character spends much of the novel in recovery from serious injuries.

Awards

None of note

Trying to work on being more clear with some of these details, such as how much items contribute to the final age-rating and for what. Probably won't come through with that for a while, as these are backlog from the weeks I was AFK (which I shouuuld get round to saying something about too, when I find the time). Also noting where I got them from.

This book and the next one, by the way, I bought cheap at a newsagent years ago because I'd seen them round lots and got curious. Hadn't read them until now 'cause of the half decade I spent not reading fiction. Liked them a lot despite the book making my editing fingers twitchy to fix it at first. Very trashy, straightforwardly fun space opera.

The narrator has a tendency to infodump, and recap excessively, and there aren't counterbalancing positive qualities unless you want to read a lighthearted thriller set in space, which I did. Made a nice change in tone from what I'd been reading the previous couple of months.

What else? The book features single-biome planets, but at least they are more interestingly described than e.g. "desert world". Also liked that the future depicted is a corporate colonialist dystopia, that the main character is a beneficiary of this system and committed to its abolition. Although he still definitely slips up. I find the biological liberties harder to go along with than the physics ones, but still managed for the sake of the story.

This all sounds a lot more negative than I feel, I think. It's fun! But probably only fun for people who enjoy the genre? Or maybe just me; it's hard to get copies of these now and they used to be everywhere for several years.

Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott

Originally published 1868; this edition 1991

Publisher: Exart Pty Ltd

G

(L, D)

Minor Coarse Language

Minor Drug Use

Representations

Gender:

Almost all the characters are female, leading to thorough Bechdel-passing. Notions of ideal womanhood are strongly tied to self-denial and sacrifice for others, and duty. Jo struck me as rather delightfully genderqueer (at least), and very disappointed to see her praised for gradually losing this aspect of herself.

Sex:

Implicitly heterosexual only.

Race & Ethnicity:

When I read the book I had a strong suspicion their maid is black, but I did not notice any direct indication or acknowledgement of race or ethnicity, apart from some US-English rivalry in which the English characters unsurprisingly came off worse.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

One character suffers a serious illness during the course of the story.

I was rather puzzled when I finished reading this (on New Year's Eve, at Sydney Harbour waiting for the fireworks), because much of what I had picked up about the book from popular culture did not seem to be present. A possible reason presented itself when I tried to add the book to my library on LibraryThing - despite claiming on the cover to be 'complete and unabridged', the copy I read was missing the sequel volume Good Wives, which seems to be pretty consistently packaged together as part of the same novel, to which further volumes are considered sequels. So, it could be that much of what I thought would happen actually takes place in that volume.

While I often enjoyed the characters and their interactions, and especially Jo, I don't think I'd like to read any further of this. The moral thread of the story was a bit too dissonant for me to want more.