If you’ve spent any time reading here, or especially if you’ve spent any time reading over here, you’ll know that I’m a bit of a francophile, and also that my husband and I have been spending time in Paris each year.
As well, you might have noticed that Pater and I both enjoy Lee Child’s Jack Reachermysteries.
So putting these two bits of knowledge together, can you imagine how pleased I was to discover, while reading Child’s 2004 book, The Enemy, that Reacher’s mother is French, that she lives in Paris, that Reacher and his brother read and speak French, if rustily, AND that they travel together to Paris to visit their mother, whose health is in jeopardy. It’s always a pleasure to move through the streets of Paris guided by a writer one admires, and to walk alongside a character one has come to like, respect, or at least be intrigued by, is a treat indeed.
I picked this paperback up from the pile of free hand-me-downs in our island’s ferry waiting room — a bonus on a hot sunny day, a bonus that seemed to be urging me to go sit in the shade with a mystery. We probably began reading this series a year or two after this book was published, so we’ve missed it. This serendipitous find has reminded me that I should go back and check out what Reacher was doing in his earlier years. If only for that filling-in of his background, this novel was worth it, but added to that aspect was a very satisfying plot AND, of course, the added benefit of a visit to Paris. Which, the narrator tells us at the end, is the last visit Reacher will ever make.
Pater’s been waiting impatiently for me to pass this one along to him, so I’ll give it to him today as a birthday treat. Let me know if you read it as well.
