Picks of the Week

  • Diana Spechler: Who by Fire: A Novel (P.S.)

    Diana Spechler: Who by Fire: A Novel (P.S.)
    Spechler's unfliching, beautifully written debut strikes at the heart of how one catastrophic event creates a fissure so deep it breaks a small family into fragmented pieces. A little girl is kidnapped, presumed dead, and over a decade later her mother is still searching for answers, her older sister seeks solace in meaningless sex and her brother - who blames himself for the crime's commission - finds his life's solution among ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Spechler uses the inciting event to show the ways in which family members cling to and turn away from each other, do terrible things with the best intentions and show the comforts and prejudices of religiosity with a compassionate eye and voice.

  • Iain Levison: Dog Eats Dog

    Iain Levison: Dog Eats Dog
    First published in France a few years ago, Bitter Lemon press finally makes this darkly comic gem available in English. When a bank robber, bleeding profusely from his last and very botched job, lands in a sleepy New Hampshire college town, disaster is pretty much inevitable. Never is that more true than for Elias White, roped into being the robber's accomplice as a result of an ill-fated dalliance glimpsed through an open window, and for FBI agent Denise Lupo, whose ability is less dogged and more fragmented. Levison nails the academic atmosphere and its jarring juxtaposition with the criminal underworld, but most of all he's clearly having fun with his given premise.

  • Matthew Hall: The Art of Breaking Glass

    Matthew Hall: The Art of Breaking Glass
    If this debut were published in 2008 instead of 1997, I suspect it would have been greeted with the same acclaim and the same sense that this is a major talent with a great deal in store for his career. Because holy hell, this has tremendous pacing, wonderful characters and an offbeat and very unique voice. But since its original publication, the book is all but out of print and there's no new novel from Hall in sight, as he's concentrated on TV and screenwriting duties. So read this book and hope that a) some publisher decides to reissue it b) Hall follows it up someday.

  • Victor Gischler: Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse: A Novel

    Victor Gischler: Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse: A Novel
    After four crime novels, Gischler turns to something a little different - and a lot more unclassifiable - with this incredibly funny, violent, panoramic and pulpy apocalyptic novel. The world Mortimer Tate left behind was about to go into ruins but what he returns to nine years later is littered with machine guns, strip clubs and people looking out for their best interests (both literally and carnivorously.) With the help of an eclectic crew of sidekicks and gun-toting babes, Mortimer prepares to save the world at the lost city of Atlanta - whether he likes it or not.

  • Zoe Sharp: Third Strike: A Thriller

    Zoe Sharp: Third Strike: A Thriller
    Once again, Zoe Sharp finds a way to make the thriller genre her own by focusing on the psychological toll that violence takes upon a person. By the end of THIRD STRIKE, Charlie Fox is at a very dark place, fully cognizant of the consequences her actions have taken upon those she's been asked to guard and those she loves, and I was profoundly disturbed in a way I haven't been after reading a thriller in quite some time. This is a long, long way from mindless fluff, and if you're prepared to travel some very dark and thoughtful corners, this is the book (and series) to read.

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June 26, 2005

As long as Reacher doesn't suddenly become a Scientologist

The news had been slowly trickling out that the option on Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels had been picked up once again by a major studio. But what wasn't reported was who actually bought the rights this time around:

Paramount and Cruise/Wagner Productions (co-owned by Tom Cruise) are teaming up to bring Lee Child's novel One Shot to the big screen.

The novel is one of a series of nine that follow the adventures of ex-military cop Jack Reacher, reports Empire Online. The story centres on the events that ensue when a man kills five people and summons Reacher when he is effortlessly arrested by the police.

It is so far unknown as to whether or not Tom Cruise will step in front of the camera for the project.

Now you know and I know that the last part of this story is just a cheap ploy to get people talking but...methinks the answer is a flat-out "no." (or as Lee's lovely webmaven put it, "He's PRODUCER.  Say it with me. P-R-O-D-U-C-E-R.  Now breathe.  In.  Out.")

OTOH, I wonder if "Free Reacher!" T-shirts will start flooding the market...

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Comments

I only hope that Cruise has to realize he's too small and pretty to play Reacher.

I want Russell Crowe to be Reacher! I love those books...

Excellent pick, Jenny.

I asked Lee about this last week at a signing after reading his comments on his blog.. and all he'd say was that he wasn't free to say much at this time... But he did mention the possibility of a 'nameless Academy Award winner'...

Benicio del Toro doesn't seem quite the Reacher 'type', so, if we consider other recent winners since 2000, that leaves Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Jim Broadbent, Adrien Brody, Morgan Freeman, Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper (my favorite actor), Sean Penn, or Tim Robbins.

But if you go back to the '90s, you get Kevin Spacey. Hmm, I might pick him.

Problem is that in my reader mind Reacher looks exactly like Lee Child..

Russel Crowe would be a good Reacher. Kevin Spacy, however, I think would be a reach. I think Reacher is a big guy, someone diesel who could believable beat the crap out of seven assassins or something.

Denzel as Reacher....ummm. A lot better fit than many of the other actors mentioned. Maybe a little older than Reacher in some of the books. But I could get my head around casting him. Doesn't hurt that I love Denzel and as the saying goes, could listen to him read the phone book.

But I'm with Annie, Reacher looks like a slightly scruffy version of Lee. Okay, sometimes more than slightly.

What about Tom Jane as Jack Reacher? He's tall, built & fair-haired.

How about a bulked up Guy Pearce?

i think Ralph Fiennes (english patient) would make a good Reacher or 2nd choice Daniel Craig but maybe he is too busy with the Bond movies. but both good actors.

Thank goodness the names Adam Sandler or Mike Meyers did not surface. Has anyone taken a tape to Val Kilmer?

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