Mike Stotter and I reflected how time flies as we
clutched our invitations to celebrate with Penguin-Random House’s Transworld
Imprint, Jack Reacher’s 21st Birthday.
Well we actually mean Lee Child’s 21st
published novel featuring the laconic loner Jack Reacher. It seemed only
yesterday that we found ourselves celebrating Lee’s first decade
in print, on the banks of The Thames.
Shots have a long history following the career of Lee Child,
from reviewing Killing Floor right up to his 21st Novel Night
School, which we reviewed
here.
As ever, Child shows himself to be a master of the game of
building up narrative tension page by page, while keeping the action thundering
along. In Reacher he has created one of the outstanding characters in the
thriller genre; a man too world-weary to be a hero, and too decent to be the
cynic he thinks he is.
Long-standing series, even ones that sell
around the world in the volumes that Lee Child’s Reacher novels do, are often
subject to the law of diminishing returns. Night School is the 21st novel in the series and side-steps that trend with no
sign of running out of steam any time soon.
Highly Recommended
Read More Here
Shot’s first interviewed
Lee Child when he was touring in 2002 with Echo Burning and the year
after during Bouchercon
Las Vegas we recorded a lengthy interview for January
Magazine.
As big fans of the work of
Child our paths often
crossed in Europe
as well as North
America.
A major event for Crime fiction readers was the Lee
Child Interview with Maj Sjöwall at
Crimefest 2015, which we recorded here,
as well as my own fascination with the Jack Reacher novels here,
here
and here
.
The Shots Team are
just one of many, many readers who find the tales of the laconic drifter
magnetic; as Child was awarded the Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger
Award in 2003, and this
link recorded the event. And we haven’t even spoken about the Hollywood
adaptations.
So we arrived in London’s
West End to celebrate Jack Reacher’s 21st Birthday. Joining us was
the Ubiquitous Barry
Forshaw as well as Robert Peppin, Henry Sutton, Mark Sanderson and from Shots our
Social Media Blogger Ayo
Onatade and columnist The
Talented Mr Mike Ripley and many many others.
There was champagne, a
delightful finger buffet as well as most amusing speeches from Publisher Larry
Finlay and the author himself which we recorded below.
The most important aspect
that worried many of us is Lee Child’s wicked rumour that he circulated; that
Jack Reacher #21 would be titled DIE LONELY, and would be the last in the
series – We can reveal that it was indeed a joke.
So here are some
photographs of the event
Left : Henry Sutton & Patsy Irwin
Right : Ayo and Mike Raising their Champagne Flutes for another 21 Jack Reacher Novels
Left :The Mysterious Brad [Lee
Child’s Security Man]
Right : Mike Ripley
Shots Ezine would like to
pass our thanks to Patsy Irwin of Transworld for the invites to this wonderful
party, celebrating 21 novels of Jack Reacher with Lee Child.
More information at www.leechild.com
No comments:
Post a Comment