Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan on Book Beginnings

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Time is so elastic during coronatime. Days drag and weeks fly. Or is it the other way around? Who has abandoned their sourdough starter? What hobbies have you taken up instead? These five months are a blur of Tiger King, walking around my neighborhood, and looking out the window at my back yard while I type at this computer, usually for work, sometimes for this blog. 

But now it is time for Book Beginnings on Fridays, an event that always stands out from the blur. Please share the first sentence (or so) of the book you want to highlight this week. Share a link to your post below and follow the links to find the other participants. 

If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag so we can find each other. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The shovel has to meet certain requirements.

-- Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan. I read this a few years back but had it out for an Instagram post and remembered how much I loved it and the other two books in his brilliant David Loogan trilogy. 

I love the deconstructed simplicity of the title and cover. Every mystery could be called Bad Things Happen!

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56, hosted by Freda on her blog, Freda's Voice, is a fun tie-in with Book Beginnings. Share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your book, or 56% of the way through your audio or e-book. Add the link to your post on Freda's blog. 

MY FRIDAY 56

"He drank. Moderately. Once in a while he drank immoderately."

Lee Child: Favorite Author

Author Lee Child writes the perennially popular Jack Reacher books. His loyal fans -- often known as "Reacher Creatures" -- gobble them up year after year. I've been hooked from the get go and still count Killing Floor as one of the best thrillers ever. If I ever get my act together and make a Top 10 list of favorite thriller books, it would be on it for sure. 

Jack Reacher is the archetype hero. I once saw Lee Child speak at a mystery writers workshop and he said just that -- he wrote Reacher as the hero archetype, like Beowulf or Sir Gawain. He's the outsider who rides into town to save it from the monster. He is big and strong and smart and he drifts around solving unsolvable problems. He can calculate the trajectory of a bullet. He can kill a man with his thumb. He can live on coffee and a catnap. He is cool.

I have read all of Lee Child's Jack Reacher books through Make Me. But I found that one so disturbing that I stopped. The books seemed to me to be getting darker and more violent and that one was pretty awful for me. I have the others on my TBR shelf, but they aren't calling to me. I'll get to them, but not soon. I'm not as enthusiastic as I was about the series.

Are any of you Reacher fans? How do you think the series is holding up? Have you stuck with it from the beginning and will you keep going? Please share these or other thoughts in a comment. If you have Lee Child or Jack Reacher posts, please leave a link in your comment. 

The Lee Child Jack Reacher books in publication order are:

Killing Floor

Die Trying

Tripwire

Running Blind

Echo Burning

Persuader

Without Fail

The Enemy

One Shot

The Hard Way

Bad Luck and Trouble 

Nothing to Lose

Gone Tomorrow

61 Hours

Worth Dying For (my short review here)

The Affair

A Wanted Man

Never Go Back

Personal

Make Me

Night School

The Midnight Line

Past Tense

Blue Moon