Seems I prefer my heroes with flaws… Peter Ash has claustrophobia due to PTSD… his books are by Nick Petrie (first one “The Drifter”).
David Baldacci has a unique series with Amos Decker, who’d gotten hit hard in a football game and it gave him a form of synesthesia and eidetic memory. First book “Memory Man”.
Baldacci also writes the John Puller books. He’s a combat veteran and a military investigator in the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigative Division. Book 1: Zero Day.
I love the Cork O’Connor series, by William Kent Kruger. I think Iron Lake is the first.
One list mentioned A Brewing Storm, by Richard Castle. I love the fact that they took Nathan Fillion’s character from Castle and wrote “his” detective novels… AND Nathan went on book signing tours as Castle!
Robert Crais used to write scripts for TV cop shows. Now he does the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series. A Dangerous Man is the first.
And, of course, Jason Bourne. Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity is a classic.
My favorite detective series is different. The Cormoran Strike series, by Robert Galbraith, a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling. First book: The Cuckoo’s Calling.
I just googled “Protagonists like Travis McGee” and got a lot of “Books like Jack Reacher” lists.
But sorry, NONE of these guys come close to Travis McGee. (Ever heard Darren McGavin read the books? Out of print, abridged, on cassette, I’ve got a couple but can’t find any now. But he did the perfect beachcomber world-weary McGee voice.)
There is a copy of John D MacDonald Value Collection on eBay with Deep Blue Goodbye, One Fearful Yellow Eye and the Lonely Silver Rain by McGavin for $70.
Also a copy of the Long Lavender Look for $14 with shipping.
I had read somewhere that John D. MacDonald had written a final Travis McGee novel in which Travis dies, allegedly as a threat to publishers. If they gave him any trouble the plan was to publish it and kill the series, kind of a Reichenbach Falls solution. The title was supposed to be “A Black Border for McGee”
Just saw the trailer last night. Looks a bit played up for yucks - but nevertheless entertaining as all hell. I didn’t catch the actor’s name, but he is HUGE!
I read that book that was co-written w/ his brother. The Sentinel? It was just a little “off”. Whatever flaws one might perceive in Lee Child’s writing, it appears as tho there might be challenges to someone just taking over the reins.
And - I believe - Lee went solo for the next book.
According to McGee scholars and John D’s son, and I believe John D himself, there was no final McGee book, though it has been oft-rumoured. If I recall correctly, John D’s line was it would be a shame for any new Travis fans to know he was dead when they started in on the series. And this way, even here in Vancouver, I live with the absolute certain knowledge that McGee is still on his houseboat at slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale, and that the world is just that much better
I was in my FIL’s library over the Sumer and he told me to take whatever I wanted. He had at least a full set of McGees and several duplicates. I probably shoulda taken them.
While I originally loved the series, I find them unreadable now. McGee’s screeds about environmental degradation and much else are fine, but he always concludes, “I’m not going to anything about it except piss and moan and pour another drink, have a meaningful one stand and then beat somebody up.” It’s the combination of the two I find annoying. That and his veneration of a certain kind of middle class life and privilege.
I have not kept up with all the “behind the scenes” stuff, but searching for Andrew Child on goodreads lists both The Sentinel and Better Off Dead (besides his other books).
The new guy looks much more like the Reacher from the books, but the tone of the trailer seems much lighter than I remember from the books. But I haven’t read any in at least a decade, so maybe it’s changed.
You’re not wrong. The Reacher casting looks pretty good, even if he is a bit too “pretty boy.” That’s de rigeur in TV, though. The thing that felt off to me was the country rock soundtrack. Reacher is American and served in the military, but he’s not really American in culture, as others have already noted, having grown up on military bases around the world and with a French mother. And even though he’s a veteran, he has a healthy cynicism about the military. That music playing with a montage of him beating folks up and drinking beer makes him seem like a good ol’ boy rah-rah yokel. I hope that’s just a trailer thing.
The last few (most recent) books I read I was surprised at how much Reacher referred to music. But impressed me as tho it was mainly somewhat classic rock. Often discussed live music in bars and I believe he went through guitar lines in his head when going to sleep or something.
I was also surprised at how ugly he referred to himself as being. Not sure how much of that was excessive self deprecation. But the descriptions of his size and looks just confirmed the ridiculousness of casting TC. Also, repeated mentions of his poor driving ability - but TC sure handles that Chevelle in the movie.
I see that now. Looks like Better Off Dead is the most recent, which I haven’t read. Not sure I will.
He’s a blues fan in the books. The plot of the very first book has him travelling to GA in search of the resting place of Blind Blake, a blues musician. There’s another story where he provides protection for an older pair of traveling blues musicians - I can’t remember which book.
In other Jack Reacher literary news (well, news to me anyway), I stumbled across this oddity yesterday— I was browsing my online library site yesterday looking for a Kindle download and saw that they just uploaded several books from a series called “The Hunt for Jack Reacher” written by someone named Diane Capri.
I downloaded one out of curiousity (#3 ‘Jack and Kill’- the titles are all terrible puns based on his first name). I just started reading, but apparently the conceit of the series is that the government wants to find Reacher to put him on some super secret mission, so they dispatched 2 FBI agents to track him down. They’re always one step behind him. Or is Reacher actually tracking them? What will they do if they finally catch up with him? Keep reading to find out! I don’t know how the author stretches out a concept like “it’s Reacher without Reacher” for… let me check, 18 freakin’ novels so far? It’s the ‘Waiting for Godot’ of action-suspense novel series. Seems like a popular series though— of the 7 series novels on the library site, only one was available to me to download.
I imagine the conversation with Lee Child or his people went something like:
Diane Capri: Can I use your Jack Reacher character in a novel series? I’ll pay you X amount of money up front and Y percent of the royalties. Reacher won’t actually appear in them, I’ll just use his name on the covers and all the promotional materials to sucker in your readers, but Reacher will just be obliquely referenced in the…
Lee Child: you had me at money up front and royalties!
Capri: great! Can I get a blurb from you too, maybe something like “you’ll want to brew up some black coffee and stay up all night reading?”
