Getting Popular

I recently decided that I need to read more of what might broadly be termed 'popular fiction'. One of the factors that pushed me in this direction was coming across an appreciative account, in one of the on-line literary magazines I tend to gravitate towards, of the Jack Reacher novels of Lee Child. It's a sign of just how dismissive of these novels I had been that I didn't take any real note of the article other than being a bit startled and distinctly intrigued by it. But then I read more recently a brief, equally appreciative, reference to the novels from the critic and novelist Margaret Drabble which forced upon me the realisation that I'd been snobbishly dismissive of Lee Child's work on the grounds that there were so many of his novels proliferating on the shelves in bookshops and libraries that they couldn't be any good and that the risible films featuring the Reacher character as played by Tom Cruise were so bad that the books themselves must be somehow of similar quality. And it looked like I was wrong.

I thought about buying one of the series, thus breaking my flimsy vow to abstain from purchasing more books until I'd cleared those on my shelves that I'd identified as needing to read and soon. But on realising that there are quite a few of the series in the library at work, including the first in the series, it came to me that it would be no problem at all to build some acquaintance with the work of Mr Child in an entirely trouble-free fashion.

The funny thing is that as soon as I got a battered copy of Killing Floor (Reacher's first outing) in my hands I just knew I was going to enjoy it. And that's precisely what has happened. For this reader it's the equivalent of going on holiday to somewhere like Blackpool as it used to be in the mythology of childhood and having an uncomplicatedly wonderful time. The fact that the writer is also really able to write helps considerably, of course.