Five stars
I stumbled across this short piece completely by accident, nothing like any Lee Child work I have read to date. Told in a single (rambling) paragraph, Child introduces a faceless narrator who speaks of a hit that he is asked to complete, in the heat of an Indian day. Through this ramble, the reader learns that the target is a prince, one of a large family, who has committed something that had led to his required extermination. What makes this a love story is that a woman has been sent in a honey pot type situation, to appease the prince and lull him away from having his defences up. All the while, the reader waits as the narrative builds until the moment arrives and a bomb’s detonation is required…Not too sure how I feel about this one, though if anyone could attempt such a feat, it would be Lee Child.
I have read a lot of unique pieces over the years, but this has got to be one of the oddest. Literally a multi-page narrative blob of facts, as if the Return key were broken on a computer keyboard, Child tosses a great deal of information at the reader, forcing them to process it without a ‘literary breath’. While I am used to the Jack Reacher rambling type of story, this was an entirely different experience and not one I hope to repeat. I am left sitting here, trying to think what to say. I chose not to subject others to the Child style and type without paragraphs, but maybe there was something intuitive about the entire writing project that I missed. I might as well end here, before I sour anyone to Child in general and call this a miss after many hits in his writing career.
Umm, Mr. Child, not your finest hour.
A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/248185-a-book-for-all-seasons
Book Reviews to Ponder 