hc.newton

WHAT'S RIGHT BEHIND HER ABOUT?

Since Bree has moved back, her brother Adam has been trying to get her to go visit their childhood home with him. It's important for him to reconnect with her there, to get her help understanding the place where their father murdered their mother and then killed himself—he was too young to remember anything. He thinks it'll be good for her, too. Bree has put it off for months, but as the novel opens, they're finally there.

She's able to show Adam around a little before things get too overwhelming for her—as they start to leave they stumble on someone squatting in their old barn. There's an altercation, and in the aftermath, one of Bree's deputies stumbles upon some human remains that had been buried in a shallow grave.

It's a lot to ask of a novel's first twenty pages—significantly advance a story arc and introduce the instigating event for a police procedural. All without cutting to a song by The Who (although one, or the NCIS/Castle instrumental themes, would have worked well at the close of Chapter 3). It's the best opening in the series so far.

Given the evidence around the bodies, the killings happened long enough ago that Bree's father is a suspect—but there are others as well. Bree and Matt turn up a lot of old secrets and scandals in their hunt for the murderer. And many of those involve Bree's family.

Meanwhile, the County Supervisors are finally meeting with Bree about her budget—and it's not going well. It doesn't help that the squatter she arrested is the drug-addicted brother of one of the Supervisors directly involved.

Basically, this is not going to be the easiest period of her new career as County Sherrif.

I ADMIT TO SOME APPREHENSION

Let me preface this by saying that I like the series, and that doesn't change in this book. Still, I think the books could easily become over-dramatic. Leigh's avoided that, but there've been a time or two that I worried she might not. However, when I read in the description:

When he mysteriously disappears and Bree's niece is kidnapped...

I will admit that I got nervous. This could easily have taken on the air of some sort of Lifetime movie or something. Her niece and nephew are great as part of Bree's non-professional life—I really think things could get overwrought if they become part of the procedural.

It didn't. Not even close. I breathed a big sigh of relief. I still think it's a danger moving forward, but that's for another day (or not).

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT RIGHT BEHIND HER?

This is easily the best of the series—in terms of writing, character, complexity of the case, and overall execution. While I've enjoyed them all, the second and third books made me wonder a bit if the series could live up to the expectations set by the first—I'm not that worried anymore.

There've been three storylines that have been going since the debut and I feared Leigh was going to stretch them out another 2+ books before really doing anything with them, and she made noticeable advancements in them all—actually, in every ongoing story, but those are the ones that were starting to chafe.

I still want a little more for Chief Deputy Todd Harvey. If Leigh had given us that in addition to all the rest? I'd probably be raving about this. I'm still recommending it heartily, but I'd be doing it with an exclamation point if she'd done something with Todd.

There's some good sleuthing here, some great character moments, solid action, and even a little romance. If you like your police procedurals to have some heart, you'd do well to give these a try. I'm eager to see where Leigh takes these characters next, and I think you will be, too.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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…maybe the others were right. With Reacher running around out there, maybe the full ceremony isn’t the smart way to go. Maybe It’s time we switched to Plan B.”

“We don’t have a Plan B, We’ve never needed one.”

“Maybe it’s time to think of one.”

What’s No Plan B About?

Reacher sees something in a newspaper about a museum display nearby, so he goes to check it out. This leads to him being in just the right neighborhood to see someone being pushed in front of a bus. While others are calling 911 and trying to tend to the victim, Reacher pursues the pusher. This leads to a confrontation where Reacher’s size works against him for once, and with the help of his partner, the man gets away (a Tom Cruise-sized character probably would’ve got at least one of them). Before they slipped away, Reacher got a glimpse of something the man took off the victim that made him curious.

That glance starts a whole machine working—that man, his partner, and their bosses can’t have what he saw become public. They don’t know how much time he got with the information, how much he read/understood—but if he saw anything, it could make things go very wrong for them. So they dispatch another team to take care of Reacher (the two that escaped aren’t in any shape to do anything after tangling with our hero).

Meanwhile, Reacher tries to convince the police that the woman had been pushed. But there’s already a witness who’d been swearing she jumped, and no one confirms what Reacher saw. The detective in charge sympathizes with Reacher and wants to follow up on his statement, but his superiors like the tidy answer a suicide brings. He feeds Reacher a bit of information, and the former M.P. is off on his own investigation. When the new team tries to take him out, Reacher knows he’s on to something and digs in for the long haul. This will take him from Colorado to a small town in Georgia, home to a prison the murder victim worked at.

Two other parties are making a trip to that same town. One is a teen who just learned that his father is imprisoned there—in the same conversation that he learned his father’s identity from his dying mother. He steals some money from his foster mother (money that should’ve been used to care for him, I should note) and buys a bus ticket from LA. He’s in over his head, and as we follow him on his journey it becomes clear that the fact that he survives long enough to get to Georgia is a sign of divine blessing or dumb luck.

We also track a father out for revenge. He’s a professional arsonist—actually, he employs professional arsonists at this point in his career. Something happened that killed his son—the details are kept vague for the reader. The grieving father backtracks the supply chain that provided the product, determined to destroy the man at the top.

So, what did I think about No Plan B?

After last year’s Better Off Dead, I was prepared to put this collaboration/Reacher 2.0 in the “Not for Me” category. I’m glad that the brothers continue to have success, and that many, many readers are satisfied, but it might be time for me to disembark. I wanted to give them one more chance—everyone has an off-novel, right?—but I’d decided that this would be my last Reacher novel. This was good enough to get the brothers another. I guess my fandom is no longer a long-term lease, but the equivalent of a month-to-month rental.

One strategy I employed going into this was ignoring half of the names on the cover—this is an Andrew Grant/Child take on Reacher, not a Lee Child*. That adjustment to my expectations, helped a bit, too.

* I’ve heard and seen multiple interviews/features on the pair describing how they work together, so I know it’s not entirely true. But, it helped me.

The action was good—but hallway fights might be better left to Daredevil than print. I wondered for most of the book if they had one too many storylines, but I ended up buying into the idea. The first hundred pages were great (at least the Reacher vs. conspirators storyline, and maybe the foster kid)—particularly the first couple of chapters, it was a very effective hook. Pages 100-300 were good enough—some “meh” bits, enough good bits to keep me engaged and to push the narrative along, with a really nice uptick over the last chapter or two. The last 50 pages were rushed—you want things to move quickly in the end of the thriller, you need fast action to go along with the adrenaline of the big finish—but this was just too much happening, and it was hard to appreciate it all. There’s a fast momentum, and there’s careening out of control, and this came close to that.

Still, it was in those pages that I came around to liking the revenge storyline and getting why the Childs went with it.

This was a decent thriller with some really good moments featuring a character that reminded me a lot of that guy from 61 Hours, The Hard Way, and One Shot. It’s a fast, entertaining read that will do the job.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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WHAT'S NOTHING TO SEE HERE ABOUT?

Over a decade ago Lillian and Madison were roommates at a boarding school for the upper crust (or scholarship kids like Lillian). They were incredibly close until Lillian was expelled. Even then, Madison wrote Lillian regularly and Lillian responded sometimes. They didn't see each other, only corresponded.

Madison's gone on to success in politics—first as a campaign staffer, now as the wife of a Senator, who is likely to be tapped for a Cabinet position. Lillian...well, she's not done really well for herself. The controversy over her expulsion followed her through school—she didn't get the scholarships she needed to get out of her situation. She's still living with her mother—which is a pretty contentious relationship.

Now Madison writes with a job offer/plea for help. The Senator's previous wife has recently died and he needs to take custody of their children. Madison would like Lillian to act as a governess (Lillian keeps saying "nanny," much to Madison's consternation) for them, at least until her husband's nomination is confirmed by the Senate.

There's a catch. The twins will sometimes burst into flames. Like Johnny Storm without the flying or the trip into space that goes horribly wrong.

They won't suffer any injury from it, but the same can't be said for their clothing or anything near them. Lillian needs to keep them out of the press, away from Madison's son, and hopefully under control. They want to/need to take care of the twins, but really don't want to have anything to do with them.

This will be the best-paying job Lillian ever has held. She knows nothing about working with kids—and the only models she's ever had for it are horrible. But she'll do whatever Madison asks (and she could use the money). Also, she knows what it's like to be a kid who needs a break—maybe she can help these kids out.

A PLEASANT TWIST

So you have a couple of kids who burst into flames from time to time. 97% of authors are going to devote the novels to the rest of the characters spending the bulk of the book trying to figure out how or why that happens, and what they can do to stop it/duplicate it/fight crime with it.

Wilson's in that other 3%, thankfully. Yes, there are some efforts to learn why it happens, but that's never the focus—and most of the time, those who are investigating aren't characters who were supposed to be that sympathetic.

The focus remains on the kids as kids—how does Lillian help them feel safe? Wanted? Normal? She does work with them on not bursting into flame—but it's not so much about the ability/affliction, but about helping them to be comfortable in their own skins—whatever temperature it is. It's about self-acceptance (which leads to control).

HOW WAS THE NARRATION?

Normally, it takes me a chapter or two to "get into" a new-to-me narrator, or at least to decide what I think of the narration overall. But Ireland won me over within the first couple of minutes—as a certain janitor says, "I don't know what IT is, but [s]he's got it."

She's a narrator I'll keep my eyes out for. I don't know that I've seen her in anything, but I saw today that she's going to be in the Justified revival—I'm looking forward to that.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT NOTHING TO SEE HERE?

One of the reasons that I put off reading/listening to this book for so long, was that I remember The Family Fang falling apart in the end—or at least not ending as good as the first 80% or so of the book was*. I was more than a little apprehensive that the same thing would apply here. Thankfully, I was wrong.

* My memory of it is hazy, that's just the sense I have—I could be wrong.

This book started strong and kept getting better—it didn't end like I thought it would but ended the only way it could've (in retrospect). The only way it could've been better is for the middle bit to be longer and more detailed. These are fantastic characters, and the concept is just as fantastic. These kids belong in a speculative work of some kind—SF or Fantasy (Urban or otherwise). But no, Wilson puts them in the middle of a family drama. And it's great to see. Funny, warm, and heartfelt—Nothing to See Here scored on all fronts for me.

If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with a breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

I think in the past, I've enjoyed The Restaurant at the End of the Universe more than this time, but I'm not sure why. Which is not to say that I didn't have a blast, I just usually have more fun. From the intricate – and death-defying – difficulty of making a good cup of tea; to the extreme lengths some people will go to for a dining experience; to perspective that a little cake can give; to considering what color a wheel should be or whether fire should be nasally-inserted – this book covers all the bases. While still episodic in nature, it seems less so than its predecessor – and far less so than its successor. It's a stronger novel, not quite as funny, but still better than most “funny” or “light” SF than you'll find.

[Gargravarr] had rather liked Zaphod Beeblebrox in a strange sort of way. He was clearly a man of many qualities, even if they were mostly bad ones.

“Poor Arthur, you're not really cut out for this life are you?” [Trillian asked]
“You call this life?”

It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85 percent of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N-N-T'Nix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian “chinanto/mnigs” which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan “tzjin-anthony-ks” which kills cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy