Midnight Lines: Reaching for a Simple Stopping Point

I can just imagine it. Hundreds and hundreads of people staying up past midnight, searching for a dull spot to place a bookmark until tomorrow. Finding stopping spots is hard to do with a Lee Child Reacher novel, and the newest, The Midnight Line, is no exception.

Child's minimilist writing style is fascinating. You read one line sentence after one line sentence. Yet, he creates images that stick in your mind for days afterwards. He also doesn't loose you as the plot twists in and out, and round about. Oh, Child writes paragraphs too, but all his writing is as spare as a long-distance runner. He gets from the starting blocks to the finish line with few or any loose-ends dangling.

Complicated things can happen by doing simple things. In this case, Reacher finds a West Pointer's ring in a pawn shop and decides to return it to the officer. He soon gets a target on his back for being a "complication". He also lands in the middle of our opiod crisis and the lousy treatment our wounded veterans all too often get. The reader gets a lovely roller coaster ride along some back country roads.

Remember the Shadow who was always asking: "What evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

Well, Child keeps asking what evil can Reacher find along US highways and roads. This time he explores back-country, dirt roads, not the highways. That the setting was over the mountains from me was a added bonus. I always wondered what might happen up in the hills away from the firewords emporium. Used to hike in the mountains on the other side of the ridge, and Child's descriptions felt real.

Child made his name dishing out action and more action. If you're an action junkie, this may not be the book for you. As Reacher grows older, he's thinking more and more, even philosophizing. Read a sample and more reviews:

Amazon          Barnes & Noble          Rankuten kobo

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Other Interesting Reading

The local writing group, Northern Colorado Writers, has an interesting blog, The Writing Bug. I like it because writing usually bugs me. Besides, I know many of the writers. Any way, David Sharp recently wrote of blog on the importance of a writer's voice. You can check it out here: In search of Voice.

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My Writing Rut

Rendezvous with Demons is finally lurching forward. Have be writing around 750 new words a day, an improvement on the old 500 words a day if I was lucky. Another plus, is I haven't yet reached the episodic descriptions I wrote during NaNoWriMo. Am guessing that's a good thing.

Here's a sample--my tentative opening:

            A party. A party? You're going to a stupid party?
            An invitation to a post-exam party from a future Kingscourt flunky had goaded Britt Kelly to visit the posh northern neighborhood where she now stood, hands on her narrow hips and shaking her head in disbelief.  The dark morning silence the suburban river-bend park rang in her ears. Empty swings drifted back and forth on the early morning breeze as mist rose from the river that flowed through Trebridge.

            The banks of the river in her neighborhood were more likely to be filled with warehouses or garbage strewn lots than groomed grass and trees. That's where she belonged. Not among the neat rows of single houses, separated by groomed yards, that surrounded the park.

            But she had been invited, and she was curious. Mostly, about how her life might have been if her father hadn't abandoned his family for another woman when she was a teen.

            Not that I'm unhappy about how my life turned out. Wish Cahal had stayed in Trebridge, but you can't have everything you wish for.

There Be Demons is still getting decent Amazon and GoodReads reviews, but I'm rewriting and rewriting the book blurb. Effort so far: [Any body have any comments?]

Britt Kelly doesn't have time to be a demon fighter. After her parents' divorce, Britt Kelly's posh suburban life turns upside down. Not only must she cope with a new high school. But she learns she's an Angeli Chosen--picked to fight invading demons at the side Trebridge's four Gargoyle Guardians. Her family's main babysitter, Britt just wants to get grades good enough to escape the projects. Dreaming about her new crush, Cahal, takes even more of her time.

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Gillen, the leader of the gargoyles, races to teach the four teens under his command enough magic to survive the coming demon battles. But he soon learns that teaching the four teens is like herding cats.

 Britt must learn to follow orders if her loved ones are to survive the coming fight between good vs evil.

You can see the old stuff at Amazon and Rakuten kobo.