The Sentinel

[4AMNTN]

yes ... when the character has to STOP to make a call - oh my - it's funny. and beepers? oh good one. We used to say why can't a beeper take in words. we would use 777 to say hi! to each other through the day ... I just wanted the beeper to be able to do " cokes " bread - just one word stuff!
OH ha!
Kevin's had a "car phone" since ... 1988? No one had one then - yeah a few "brick/bag phones" ... it was mounted in the truck - and it was billed thru GTE. Which later became Verizon... we've had an account THAT long. we still have it.

[YB]

Yeah, I remember a friend of mine got one in his truck, he earned his living as a haulier. I think he said it cost about 1000 pounds which was a lot of money thirty years ago. In addition making calls from them was very expensive, as was ringing them. I think the calls cost ten times as much as ringing someone on their house or office phone.

I remember ours, mid 1990's, size of a brick. Definitely struggled to get it in my pocket. Although I think the main thing about the size was the size of the battery. And of course these phones just made and received calls. Nowadays, is there anything a mobile phone CAN'T do?

[4AMNTN]

Yeah it was mounted ... an analog phone . We never worried about the cost IT WAS A CAR PHONE! And even after cell phones were popular this particular phone would pick up where cell phones would not - so we kept it for many years. Funny ... after 30+ we still have the SAME number [emoji2]


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[Deanie]

John from JV Books gave Reacher's new adventure a thumb's up. He read the book last night and thought the transfer from Lee to Andrew went smoothly.

[YB]

John from JV Books gave Reacher's new adventure a thumb's up. He read the book last night and thought the transfer from Lee to Andrew went smoothly.

I'll be interested to read the views of the BJers in a few weeks time

[4AMNTN]

I’m interested in how this character will play out / I mean will it flow like Reacher? The last several books have not been my favorite. I WILL be interesting to read how real the area is written - the Nashville bus station has never been a place to “hang”- although Music City is BOOMING now. Wow!


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[YB]

I'm not sure about the release date of the new book in the USA but here in the UK it is October 27th. We will all make up our own minds but at least one person is not impressed according to this article by a man named David Sexton in a UK magazine called The Spectator.

So upsetting it would have been, for those of us who rate Lee Child’s Jack Reacher thrillers so highly, if handing them over to another author had made no discernible difference in quality. After all, we value Child as a writer, not as a production line. So here’s the good news: it makes all the difference. The Sentinel, the 25th Jack Reacher novel, is a travesty.
At 65, Child has finally carried out his long-held plan to retire. Andy Martin, his academic disciple, ended a second reverential study of his idol, With Child, by quoting Child saying to him: ‘Somebody else can do it for me... What about you?’, apparently in the hope it might really happen. Instead, Child has handed on the franchise to his younger brother, real name Andrew Grant, a much less successful thriller writer.
It is unclear how much input Lee has had in this supposedly jointly authored work. He loyally maintains: ‘It’s as good as I could have done on my own. Better, in fact, because it has that extra energy.’ ‘Literally we are the same person, just 14 years apart,’ he asserts. Maybe. But not the same writer. Everything about The Sentinel — which sees Reacher battling a ransomware cyber attack in a small town a couple of hours out of Nashville, uncovering a conspiracy that involves both Russians seeking to pervert the elections and American Nazis hoping to recreate the Nuremberg rallies, the sinister mastermind manipulating all this boasting a reversible portrait in his study, Hitler on one side, Stalin on the other — is clumsy.
The attempt to move Reacher into the digital age (he tries a mobile) is a mistake, simply
Andrew Child knows what he should be doing; he just can’t manage it. Reacher’s fabulous taciturnity? The killer phrase ‘Reacher said nothing’ is dutifully reproduced several times, but this Reacher says far too much. He’s a loquacious bore, a pedant, quibbling about words and given to explaining things at great length before he takes action. His mystique is dissolved by too much information all round.
Andrew Child knows his brother’s maxim: ‘You should write the fast stuff slow and the slow stuff fast.’ But the slowed-down action sequences simply don’t work. They have none of the grace of Lee’s own rhythm and syntax. Peculiarly fixated on left hands and right hands, they read like instruction manuals translated from another language:
“Reacher unfastened Marty’s seatbelt and grabbed the loose section with his left hand, whipping it back and pinning the tongue against the door with his left knee. He stretched around and laid his left palm over Marty’s forehead, clamping his head in place. Then he snaked his right hand around the seat and pressed his fist against Marty’s throat.
The Sentinel attempts to emulate Lee Child’s withholding of necessary information (also known as suspense) on the level of plot but it just doesn’t sustain interest or coherently resolve. The attempt to move Reacher into the digital age (he tries a mobile) is a mistake, simply.
So, let’s accept, Lee Child is a writer who can’t be so easily reproduced. There is much more to his work than the transferable asset of Reacher. He himself has stated: ‘The character does not exist. It’s just a way of mediating the wants of the reader.’ A purist, he insists: ‘There are only two people in this transaction... The writer and the reader.’ That writer has gone.
The Reacher franchise has such momentum, the books will doubtless continue to sell anyway, just as those issued under the names of Robert Ludlum and James Patterson do. We still have those 24 originals, though. Like Wodehouse, they can be read repeatedly.

[Meg]

Releases on my b-day....yay!!!

[4AMNTN]

MEG! :WAVE: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!! :CLAP: (belated now I guess). Oh my the days are flying by .... I hope you have. WONDERFUL WEEK!

[4AMNTN]

Just downloaded the book -I’ll start it tonight.


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[YB]

I won't be reading it until after Christmas so please mark any spoilers or start a new "Spoilers" topic

[4AMNTN]

Oh sure! I’ve kinda loss interest in JR ... these last several books just didn’t seem ... realistic? I keep screaming for a flashback book —- better for the times.


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[YB]

I thought the last couple were good, whereas a few of the ones before were not as good as the early ones. (When I read that through I'm not sure it makes sense, but I know what I mean.)

However this latest one is the first written by Lee's brother so it may be like starting a completely new series. We shall see

[4AMNTN]

SPOLER ALERT :: SPOILER ALERT ::SPOLER ALERT :: SPOILER ALERT::
Just getting into this... so far I like it. Funny tho .. the bar? with the bras? That's our Coyote Ugly. which is a copycat of NYC's Hogs N Heifers. (been there - got the T shirt) also put my bra up ohhh about 16 years ago ... tacky? nah tradition, ha!

[4AMNTN]

STILL reading ...